Black-Winged Angel
by ftlow
Summary: They've always seemed like threatening birds, Ravens. All sharp beaks and ominous cries in the fog. You suppose, though, that you look like you have your shit in a heap - so appearances can be deceiving. Perhaps it is fated, then, that your Angel is no white-winged apparition from heaven.
1. The Midterm

This whole thing was a gamble. You knew that from the start. You're just not certain that it's paying off.

You sigh, looking away from your office and the books lining the shelves, sliding your glasses off your nose and massaging the bridge. Even though the plastic-framed reading glasses are so much lighter than your telescopic metal surgery glasses, they somehow create a duller, deeper ache.

Your laptop screen lights up with a quiet jingle and Jackson's face fills it, concerned.

"_Doctor Griffin?"_

You push yourself upright, setting your shoulders back, debating for just a moment whether or not to put the glasses back on. You decide against it.

"Jackson," you return with a smile. "How are you getting on?"

"_Clinical lead requires far too much paperwork, and we're short-staffed," _he tells you. His tone isn't one of complaint, but of fact. You nod; the staffing issue had been there for a long time, and your 'mid-life crisis,' as Marcus had termed it, wasn't exactly helping.

You swallow the urge to apologise. Jackson ploughs on. _"Did you take morphine from the clinic?"_

It takes you a moment to follow his train of thought and then your heart sinks in your chest. "They inventoried already?"

Jackson shakes his head, pixels blurring as reality outpaces them. _"No, Marcus was just here."_

You sigh. "Alright, thanks, J, I'll deal with it. Must have forgotten to log it on that weekend shift I pulled."

You reach out to end the call, but he speaks, stops you.

"_You- you look exhausted, Abby. I thought this was supposed to be a break."_

You smile tiredly at him. "It would be more of a break if I didn't still do overtime in surgery," you quip. "I'm fine, Jackson. I just didn't sleep much last night. Thank you."

He smiles tentatively back and lets you hang up.

There's a quiet knock from the front of your office and you glance up, meeting the dark eyes of a second-year student. She isn't actually studying medicine, but she's taking some optional theory modules and struggling a little; it's not like her actual course of mechanics, after all.

"Raven," you greet her, careful not to let your eyes slip to the framework of metal and carbon surrounding her left leg. "How are you getting on with your assignment?"

The young woman's shrug says it all and you invite her in. She throws herself on her usual chair, hesitates, and silently toes off her battered black boots, heaving her bad leg up onto the empty chair beside her.

You raise an eyebrow. She'd never acknowledged the brace before and you'd been careful not to either.

"Are you…" you swallow the words _all right_, knowing they'll be brushed off. "In pain?" You try instead.

Raven hesitates, almond-shaped eyes locking with yours, chewing her lip. Her bronze cheeks darken and she looks away, nodding.

"Do you take pain medication?" You ask briskly, professionally.

She shakes out her ponytail, smooth dark hair shining in the harsh office lights, and remarks, "I didn't book in with my GP, doc."

You're not surprised that Raven's first words are a joke. She's a bright, happy-go-lucky girl, although you suspect she hides behind the humour sometimes. _Not that you__'re a psychiatrist_, you remind yourself. You shake your head fondly, a smile quirking the corners of your mouth, and you fight it for only a moment before it morphs into a helpless chuckle.

"Old habits die hard," you return, and she shakes her head at you, rolls her eyes.

"General practice? Thought you were an A&E doc, doc?"

You raise an eyebrow and she shrugs. "I looked you up when someone told me you hadn't taught before."

You sigh. "Yes, this is my first year here. I _was_ clinical lead in A&E. Trauma surgeon. Teaching is…slower. Less stressful."

She laughs, right from her stomach, and you watch from behind the desk, turning over the unfamiliarly-light weight of your reading glasses. You wonder why you'd told her, why you'd shared anything with a student - let alone your opinions on your current and previous jobs.

"More boring?" She asks impishly, and you duck your head, not willing to admit it but knowing she can see the truth of her words in your expression. "So, what are you doing here?" She pushes.

You lift one shoulder, unwilling to explain your decision to jump off the spinning top of emergency theatre to land unsteadily in the world of academia. Unwilling to open up any further. Instead, you smirk. "Helping you with your mid-term, I think?"

Recognising the not-so-subtle steer back into safer territory, Raven nods, and shifts uncomfortably on the chair, drawing her good leg up and propping her chin on it. You appraise her carefully, noting for the first time the dark shadows under her eyes that blend into her Hispanic skin tone.

"I was wondering," she began carefully, "how far I can draw on… on _non-clinical _case-studies. For the mid-term. You know, since I don't have any patient-facing experience."

You gaze at her, recognising the walls she's building, the deliberate wording. You order your thoughts, weighing each word of your own, rolling them one-by-one around your mouth before releasing them into the suddenly-thick air between you.

"It's a difficult…process, to write a balanced and objective essay while drawing on…experiences, or memories, of your own," - you raise a hand to stall her as she tries to interrupt, no doubt to deny that _she _was the case study – "Or someone else's." You dip your chin, catching her eyes and holding her gaze, telling her silently that you know_,_ you _know_ what she's asking, and you're not going to push for more information. "It isn't impossible. You'd have to be willing to be quite… honest. And analytical - passionate, by all means, but impersonal. And you must back everything up with clinical evidence."

She's watched you speak, and now she bites her lip and drops her eyes.

You lean back in your chair, sighing. "Raven, it's not impossible, but depending on how… _close_… the situation is, it won't be easy. Like…" you cast wildly around for an example and settle where you were once most comfortable - and the last place you should now land in a hurried search for a metaphor. "Like in surgery, we don't get to operate on family and friends. There's no clinical reason why we shouldn't, it's the same process, same surgery on the same species, but emotions cloud judgement. It's a gamble – whether or not that will affect the outcome, and how the outcome will affect the surgeon."

You stop, suddenly, quickly, before you say too much, before the conversation becomes too personal again. You feel suddenly young and nervous, despite having at least twenty years on this student, and fall back on a two-year-old habit; worrying the ring on your necklace.

She studies you guardedly, chewing her lip, and there's a silent conversation filling the space between you. You're curious, but you don't push, and she doesn't either, although she clearly heard the undercurrent to your words and her eyes have flickered down to your hand at your chest. The carefully-constructed walls that had been fortified the moment Raven asked her question were firmly up.

Finally, she nods, almost imperceptibly. You're not sure whether that means she understands, or whether there's some other message she's trying to get across, but you simply nod back, and try to lift your glasses onto the desk from your lap. They clatter as you almost launch them, muscles automatically catering for something at least five times their weight, and the awkwardness is broken as Raven chuckles and pulls herself upright, forcing her feet into her boots. The left requires more guidance, you notice.

"Well, thanks, Doctor Griffin. I'll give it a go. Gamble. If it's too… _much_, I'll, er… I'll change it. I have time."

You nod. "I can look over a draft, usual guidelines apply on the length. But drafts aren't anonymous like final submissions are."

She squints at you, and you almost feel the moment she gains a little more respect for your insight and sensitivity. A mutual understanding falls between you. She nods.

"Thanks," she replies, and turns, swinging her leg into action. You pretend not to hear her hiss of discomfort as she twists herself around the door frame.

* * *

It's almost two weeks later when Raven returns. The weather is strange; the clouds bear down close above your head and the whole world feels dark and claustrophobic. You're kneading your temples, reading a poor essay by a first-year medical student who still seems unaware of the difference between a scapula and a scalpel, and a mandible and a maxilla. Your mind is elsewhere – with Marcus, chair of the hospital board, who is calling for your permanent resignation.

Jackson's concerned face fills your mind as he asks whether you're sleeping any better, if you'd scribbled down the morphine usage anywhere because it wasn't in the log.

_No, _you'd told him regretfully,_ I__'m almost certain I wrote it on my glove. It'll be deep in clinical waste by now._

You know it's stupid to make the same mistake twice. You also know it wasn't really a mistake, and you're not too sure you want to reflect on that uncomfortable fact, so you're trying really hard to focus on this piece-of-shit essay rather than be surprised at how easy it was that morning to let the lie roll convincingly off your tongue.

Raven's knock takes you by surprise. Your head shoots up.

"Raven," you gasp, a hand going to your chest.

"Whoa, doc. If anyone's gonna have a heart attack, it needs to be me, 'cause you can fix me up… I can't even get on the floor to _try_ and help if you keel over."

You stare at her for a moment, and a slow smile spreads across your face at the self-deprecating joke. You shake your head imperceptibly and beckon her in, eyes drawn to the paper clutched in her hand. You pluck the glasses from your face, almost launching them across the room, still not used to the barely-there plastic frames.

She laughs and throws herself into her usual chair. "Lighter than a surgeon's usual eyewear, hm? I was the same when I redesigned this. Carbon fibre weighs nothing compared to steel. I was taking chunks out of door frames for weeks." She indicates her leg carelessly.

You stare at her, knowing your cheeks are flushed, not used to being ungainly. Usually your hands are steady, life-saving. Calm. But you're also intrigued by Raven's words.

"You built that yourself?" You ask, and she colours and shrugs.

"I'm a mechanic. Kind of. It's a calling."

You laugh. "So we're both surgeons, in our own way," you muse, and she grins.

"I suppose so," she nods, and then falls silent. You raise a questioning eyebrow at her, and when it becomes clear she isn't planning to break the quiet, you let your eyes stray to the paper clutched in her hand, hard enough to crumple.

"That for me?" You ask casually.

She blows out a held breath, glances at it and then at you. She nods, but makes no move to pass it over.

"It's a gamble," you realise aloud, echoing her statement at the end of their last meeting, and then she's staring at you.

"That's what you said before," she agrees. "We both did."

You consider her tense shoulders, precarious position on the edge of her seat, and sigh. "Teaching was a gamble," you tell her, hoping it might put her at ease. "I… needed a sabbatical. At least thought I did. This was a way of getting that without taking a proper career break." You frown down at your glasses and lay them on the pathetic essay before you break them, squeezing your eyes closed against the pounding in your head. "We all take gambles in life."

"Jesus, doc. You look exhausted."

You squint at her, smile tightly. "I'm fine, Raven. Just didn't sleep that well."

"You said that last time," Raven points out, and you stare at her, knowing you didn't say anything of the sort while she was in the room.

She realises her mistake. "Sorry," she mumbles. "I wasn't listening, but… you didn't reply when I knocked the first time so I was… there."

You put on the best disapproving-teacher look you can muster, but you've only been lecturing for a couple of months and you know it's a poor effort.

She regards you for a moment, evidently unaffected by your expression, and then blows out a breath and studies the carpet. "I don't," she whispers, and you take a moment to work out what she said, and then struggle to align it with your conversation. She glances up at you for a fraction of a second and then towards the door, as if wishing she'd left - or perhaps never arrived. "I don't… take anything. For this." She gestured to her leg. "Or anything else," she added.

You raise an eyebrow at her, not sure how the question you'd asked her at the start of your meeting a fortnight ago fitted into today's. "You'd be entitled to help, Raven. Not to mention there would be some medical professionals very interested in your brace."

"I don't need anybody's help," she retorts, sitting up straight, and it's the first time any student has snapped at you. You're momentarily surprised at the strength of her anger. Then she relaxes. "Sorry," she murmurs. "I'm…not a fan of relying on anyone. Or anything." She shrugs and you smile at her, still sat demurely behind your desk.

"Independence is an admirable trait, Raven, but so is the ability to accept help graciously when it's offered." You hesitate, and clench your fist. "I still practice. I can get you the medication, or a referral to a good physio, if you want. If not…" you shrug.

She's watching you again. You're not quite sure whether you like the close observation, but you think probably not. You certainly aren't used to it.

"Who's Jackson?"

You blink, moving automatically to reply before you consider whether or not you should. "He was my deputy at work and he's filling in while I'm away."

"So he's a surgeon too?"

"Best doctor I know," you confirm.

She regards you for a moment, nods. "And Marcus?"

You level her with a cool gaze, suddenly frustrated at her nosiness. "Why?"

She shrugs, becoming self-conscious, and you sigh, exhaustion weighing on you. _What does it matter if she knows? _"He's on the hospital management board. He's not my biggest fan," you admit, and she seems to recognise that it's as much as you're willing to say.

She crumples the paper between her thumb and fingers again. You let your eyes stray to the essay, to the homemade brace, and somewhere in your mind, you let yourself accept that she intrigues you, this girl.

Finally, she reaches - incredibly slowly - out to you, and then drops the paper on your desk like it burns. She hesitates and you reach for it equally carefully, gradually, as if you're trying not to spook a flighty animal.

"Wait," she bursts out. You freeze. "Just… just don't change, will you?"

You stare at her, nonplussed.

She takes a deep breath. "You're the only one who doesn't look at me like I'm broken, even with this," she says, patting the brace. "And… what's in there is… different. It's not… visible." She meets your eyes momentarily, then stands and turns away. "Don't pity me," she warns in the general direction of the door, and then walks through it, leaving you alone.

The clouds press closer to the window, trying to read over your shoulder, and you turn away from them, feeling oddly protective of Raven's work. Her privacy.

* * *

It takes three days for you to pluck up the courage to read it. You leave it face down on your desk, just as she'd done, and pile files and folders on it and around it.

It's after another call from Jackson, assuring you that Marcus's vendetta was temporarily ceased due to a paramedic death on-duty in the ambulance station and – likely as a result – an impending CQC inspection, that you finally feel steady enough to read it.

Raven's nerves – from a usually laid-back, easy-going student – have affected you more than you realised, and your hands are shaking as you reach out for the paper. You choose not to consider the other explanation for your shaking hands, anyway; refusing to give the clinic another reason to fail their inspection.

_It__'s better I'm not there for that. I'll stay far away until the inspection is over._

You wonder, still, in idle moments between lectures that are too short to mark in, too long to not think in, why you allowed her to ask the personal questions she asked. Why you indulged her by answering them, volunteering more information than you'd usually give anyone - even colleagues.

You're not certain of the answer, but you _are_ certain that for all Raven is surrounded by people when you glimpse her around campus, she doesn't have a lot of real friends.

It takes almost ten minutes of staring at the paper to turn it over, but in the end it's a quick flick of the wrist and it's done. Like surgery; the first incision.

You read the title twice. Blow out a breath. Read it again.

"_I will stop": The effect of addiction on behaviour and the physiological causes of behavioural change._

You're already mentally tidying up the title, deliberately avoiding what it _means_ to you, as your eyes drop to the first line and you settle in, pencil in hand.

* * *

Two afternoons later, Raven responds almost immediately to your email inviting her for feedback, and turns up at your office door. It's open, even though you're talking to Jackson, because you simply couldn't muster the strength to get up and close it.

You wave Raven in and start to make your excuses to Jackson.

"_No, Abby, you don't get to hang up on me this time. The inspection was fine but they're inventorying twice as often, you _can't_ make any more mistakes.__"_

Forgetting your guest, you roll your eyes. "Yes, _dad_," you tell him, smirking to diffuse the tension in his shoulders. It works.

"_I'm young enough to be your son," _he reminds you, and childishly pokes out his tongue.

You relax as he hangs up, burying your head in your hands.

"Shit, doc, you look…like shit," Raven's voice encroaches, and you shoot upright.

"Raven," you breathe, and she winks.

"That's what you said last time."

You know she's hiding her nerves behind this façade of cheeky, almost flirtatious banter. You don't have the energy to do the same; the exchange with Jackson had exhausted you entirely.

Her face falls when you don't reply in kind.

"Raven," you repeat, unable to come up with anything more ingenious, and suddenly she's on her feet, coming closer to the desk.

"You really do look like shit," she repeats, looking at you with concern, and your mind is already listing what she's seeing, an image wavering behind your eyes of a page of symptoms out of the textbook, another of Raven's essay overlaying it… _pale, sweaty skin; shaking hands; lank hair._

You take a shaky breath and sit up more fully. "I'm fine, Raven," you assure her, squaring your shoulders. "So, your gamble paid off. This is one of the most promising essay drafts I've ever read, especially from a non-medical major. You could publish this in medical journals."

And so the feedback begins. Raven sits, listens, replies, asks questions. She's every inch the perfect student.

It's clinical, you make sure to keep it that way, and you pretend not to notice when Raven hesitates over her words, carefully referring to the 'case' and the 'subject'.

You can't, however, ignore her slip when she finally calls the 'subject', _'mom'_.

She slaps her hand over her mouth and you look up at her, meeting her eyes. You watch as they fill with tears, but you have nothing to say. No judgement, just an open, honest expression. She gradually relaxes, blinks the tears away.

Finally, you shrug. "It's a good essay, Raven, and your writing style is fine despite the…_personal_ nature of the case. Perhaps finishing and submitting this would be cathartic." You pass the draft back to her, your scruffy notes and her careful ones covering the margins from where you've been passing it back and forth for the last hour.

Raven takes it and stands, smiling tightly. "Thank you, Doctor Griffin," she says, and limps to the door. You think her limp's worse now than it was the other day, but you're not sure, and your hand grasps blindly at the glass container of clear, dispensary-labelled liquid in your lap.

She turns at the door and glances back, and for a wild moment you think she's somehow seen it, or heard it, or caught a glimpse through your mask.

"For the record, I think your gamble paid off too," she tells you earnestly, and you must look blankly at her, for she hurries to explain her words. "You know, teaching. For us, if not for you."

And somehow, you're incredibly touched, and your voice sticks in your throat, and your eyes blur with tears, and she's gone before you can thank her.

You squeeze the morphine ampoule so hard, the vial shatters, and you curse, lifting your bleeding hand to your mouth and sucking, hard, at the blood and the clear liquid that's soaking your skin, your chair, your suit trouser leg.

_I will stop, Raven,_ you promise her, and you can almost see, in your mind, a younger Raven hearing the same thing from her mother – bloodshot eyes, trembling hands reaching towards her daughter, and Raven responding, angrily, loudly, _"said by every addict ever!"_

It's all in your head, but it somehow hurts more than the lies to your colleagues, your friends, your own _daughter;_ it hurts more than the sneaking and lying and nearly getting caught and trying to stop by yourself.

It might have saved your life. _She _might have saved your life.

* * *

You don't see her for a month, but a colleague approaches you with her essay, handing it over with three more - all anonymised, of course - and informing you that those four are the best of the cohort, if you'd like to take a look.

You read every word reverently, bitterly, until you know it by heart, and you only make one 'mistake' at the clinic in the whole month. Jackson simply shakes his head and promises to write in the log for you, but you're worried by his easy dismissal. He's not the sort to let it go, and you think maybe he's beginning to put the pieces together.

But it's okay, because soon, it won't be a problem any more.

* * *

Raven visits after her results are published, and it's one of your bad days. She bounces into the office, limp less pronounced than you've ever seen it, and you distractedly recognise that her brace has changed, but you can't put your finger on the exact difference. She flourishes some flowers, which you take silently, numbly, and she squints at you.

"Thank you, Doctor Griffin," she tells you, and you look from the bouquet to her earnest face, but you can't quite muster a smile. "You were right, it was cathartic, and my results were the best I've ever had in a non-mechanics module."

You think you manage to twitch the corners of your mouth up, but you can't swear to it, and her expression changes suddenly as she doubles over to look closely at your eyes.

"What's going on?" she asks and you blink, eyes sliding back to the flowers.

"Thank you," you say, far too late, and run a shaking finger over a petal. "They're beautiful, and completely unnecessary."

But she's still looking suspiciously at you and you're certain that any other student would have accepted your answer, but she- _there__'s no way she will_.

"Abby, what the hell?"

You barely register her use of your name, although later you'll wonder how she knows it and why she uses it. You feel her hand tipping your chin up and you squeeze your eyes closed, but it's too late. You don't even consider how inappropriate her touch is on your face.

"What the hell are you taking?"

_She knows. _You blink slowly. "Sorry, Raven, I'm not… not feeling so well…" you try, licking cracked lips. _Still trying to avoid the truth._

"Yeah, you've looked like shit for weeks, I told you that," she snaps. "What is it? Smack? Coke? Alcohol?"

You blink. It sounds ugly when she says it like that - as if illegal addictions are worse, somehow. "Morphine," you tell her, almost used to the involuntary verbal diarrhoea around her now. Still not really knowing why. "Diazepam. Fentanyl." It's the first time you've admitted it to anyone - even yourself, really.

"Prescription painkillers. _Prescription smack._" She laughs, and it's the cruellest sound you've ever heard. "I should have guessed that," she mutters. "'_Do you take pain medication?__' _What were you going to do, share your stash? Of course you could give clinical feedback on my essay, of _course_ you could, you're a textbook bloody-"

Suddenly you have a burst of energy, a desperate _need_ to- to-

"I need…" you mumble, cutting her off short without making the decision to speak.

There's a beat of silence.

"How long's it been?" She asks swiftly, detachedly, and you shrug.

"Days, a week…the longest in a long time. I owe you that."

She shakes her head, lip curling in disgust, and you hate that expression being directed at you. You remember it from her feedback session, you remember it being directed at her _mom_, but her mom's not here, and-

"I will _not_ help you get your next fix," she tells you venomously, and you're suddenly angry, inexplicably furious, because you didn't mean the compliment as manipulation, you don't _want_ her help to get any more of what you're trying so desperately to ignore and forget - but she _is _the reason you want to ignore and forget it.

The sound registers before the stinging pain on the flat of your hand and then you're aware you're on your feet. You sink down again, back into your office chair, as she slowly brings her eyes back around to yours.

You can't take the soft, vulnerable expression in them.

You bury your face in your hands, knowing an apology is useless. She pushes a glass of water towards you in silence, and you ignore it.

It takes a few minutes until she speaks, and you'd started to hope that she'd just go, report you, do whatever she wanted to do so it would be _over-_

"My mom used me to get her hits. She told me she cared, she told me she loved me, but that all went away if the drugs did. So I was as desperate for her to have them as she was, and yet equally desperate for her to give them up."

You swallow, raise your head. There's a red handprint on her face and you can't look at it, so even though you've lifted your chin, your eyes are still focused down.

"She overdosed, once. Just once. That single time killed her. And I didn't know what to do, and I just carried on living, by myself, and it was easier because I only had to look after me, not her too. But I wasn't old enough to really understand what to do, and she was still there on her bedroom floor six days later. I'll never forget the smell."

Your eyes shoot to hers. You know that smell; it hits you right here in your office and you gag, and she smiles grimly at you.

"That's what this is. That's what this _does._ Who would find you, I wonder? Who'd have to live with that memory? Jackson?" She raises an eyebrow, glances around the room. "Your daughter?" She gestures to the photos you hung on your wall, of Clarke's graduation from med school. "Hey, looks like she might even be able to help, if she found you in time. Pump your stomach out, hold your hair back while you puke. Listen to you insult her while she helps you through withdrawal."

You're sure, now, that you're going to throw up, because of _course_ you'd thought abstractly about how this might affect them all, but she's making it _real, tangible, _and you can't-

"Sort yourself out, Doctor Griffin. You're better than this."

She gets up and leaves you with the cloying scent of the flowers, your hands shaking.


	2. The Graduation

It takes months. It costs you your surgery job, and you resign your license to practice medicine, but somehow, you drag yourself back to 'clean' - without facing a court case or putting any of your friends or family through hell.

You keep the teaching job.

You drink a bit too much, probably, but you're alive, if not quite _living_, and you're not doing anything illegal to temporarily squash your demons with any more.

You're torn between guilt that Clarke wasn't the reason you got clean, and fascination with the idea that Raven was.

* * *

You're still clean and still teaching by the time Raven graduates the following summer, eighteen months after the essay. You haven't seen her at all since you slapped her, and the thought of that day twists hot guilt through your stomach.

You've followed her progress through the degree program. You know she's graduating with a first class degree, with honours, in engineering and biomechanics, having taken some bioengineering and astrophysics modules as well as the medical one.

You also know she hasn't requested any tickets for her ceremony.

You go, and sit anonymously among the guests of the other graduates, out-of-place among the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and siblings.

She limps almost imperceptibly across the stage, her brace covered by her flowing graduation gown, and accepts her certificate with a confident handshake and a smile. You swallow down the emotion that chokes you, because you can count on one hand how many times you actually met her one-on-one and you shouldn't be here, uninvited, at her graduation ceremony. You shouldn't be this invested - but she saved your life.

Her eyes catch yours and hold them as she steps down the other side, and she watches you all the way back to her seat. You're so surprised by her noticing your presence, so surprised by the intensity of her gaze, that you don't look away. You forget to be ashamed of what she knows.

* * *

She catches you after the ceremony, less regal now in her gown and more awkward, fingering her cap and chewing her lip. It reminds you of the first time she visited your office.

You're startled that she isn't mingling with her fellow graduates and their professors, helping herself to the buffet and reminiscing. Instead, she's sought you out where you're hovering awkwardly next to the doorway of the room, watching the sea of black rise and fall - the tide going out, before it comes back in again with the new students in September.

You stand together, watching silently. There don't seem to be any words that you can form to express how you're feeling; you're not sure whether to thank her, congratulate her, apologise to her, explain your presence, ask about her future… there's so much unsaid between you that you don't know where to start.

Finally, she turns to you, and you watch silently as her dark eyes scan your face, your hair, your hands and your smart clothes.

It feels intimate.

Seemingly satisfied, she smiles softly. "Congratulations," she offers.

You open your mouth, and then frown. "Shouldn't I be saying that to you?"

Raven shrugs, and you wrest the cap from between her fingers, where she seems to be slowly but surely working to shred it entirely. You're certain it's rented, and tearing the seams would be a surefire way to gain a hefty fine.

"Let's try again," you suggest, a smile quirking up the corners of your mouth. You indicate her certificate, tucked under her elbow. "Congratulations, Raven. That's a fantastic result."

She smiles at you, and you're struck by how much it changes her face. You've seen her nervous, and sarcastic, and downright angry, but never… _happy. _She looks beautiful, even with her hair scraped back the same as always, no make-up on, her lithe form and genius brace covered by a baggy piece of black cloth.

"Thank you," she says, and scans your face again. "And _thank you._"

You understand the double meaning. You know what she was looking for earlier; you understand the way she scanned your features, noting the healthier pallor, clean and shiny hair, tremor-free hands, size three or four pupils. You know that she _knows_.

"It… it was you," you rush out, needing her to know. Raven blinks, taken aback. You're suddenly gripped with a familiar need, a desperate, crushing _ache - _but this time, it's not for a hit. It's for her to _understand._ Some of it must show on your face because she suddenly looks concerned, serious, and she tugs you from the doorway, leads you by the elbow back down the wood-panelled corridor, and pushes you gently into a seminar room that's out of use until September - closed for the summer.

"Say that again," she requests softly, and you turn tear-filled eyes on her to see her leaning on the door she's just closed behind her. Her eyes are bright, her mouth turned down, but she doesn't seem unhappy.

"I stopped for you," you breathe, and she squeezes her eyes closed. A single tear traces down her cheek and she swipes at it, a choked, strangled sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh pushing its way out of her mouth.

"You know, I used to dream of her saying that to me. Or even just… '_I stopped.__'_" She shakes her head, a wry smile on her lips. "Life has a way of knocking your legs out from under you." Your eyes flicker down to where you know her brace is hidden, and she laughs agreeably at the unspoken pun.

There's a moment of comfortable silence. "_Thank you,__" _you breathe again, and she's suddenly gripping your hands tightly in hers, smiling blindingly.

* * *

She asks you to wait while she returns her rented gown. You're not sure why she asks, or why you do it, but you're still there, stood awkwardly in your suit trousers and blouse, when she returns in her own. You walk together to the campus gate, silently, comfortably.

"Why?" Raven asks quietly, just as it comes into view.

You shrug uncomfortably. "Honestly, I'm not sure," you tell her. "Because I needed the reality check. Because you didn't know me or know why, but you recognised that there was a problem and you tackled it. Nobody else… no-one understood. No-one understands."

Raven stops at the gate, looks at you, and you feel like maybe she's looking through you. It makes colour rise to your cheeks. You avoid her gaze and scuff your foot across the concrete like a shy schoolgirl.

"I'm glad you're okay," she says finally. "And thank you for coming today."

You smile at her, and you wonder how you can be so sure that you absolutely mean it when you reply, "Any time. Anything."

Raven turns to walk away, and you watch her take a few steps and then remember - "Raven?"

She turns, her rolled certificate now carefully cradled in her hands, and her unguarded expression takes your breath away. "Yeah?"

"You- that last time, in my office. I'm so sorry."

One of Raven's hands ghosts over her cheek and she shrugged. "I pushed you. On purpose. I was trying to provoke you."

You're shaking your head before she's finished speaking and you're not sure when you moved closer, but _oh - _your hand is on hers against her cheek and she's staring at you, taken aback.

"It doesn't matter what you said, it - well, of course it matters, it was _everything_, but - it's not an excuse for what I did, it's not - that's not _okay _-"

Raven cuts you off. "It wasn't you. Abby, it wasn't you, it was the drugs. I know."

You shake your head, but whatever you were going to say is drowned out by a different question - one that you'd almost forgotten you had.

"How do you know my name?"

Raven smiles gently, twists her hand under yours on her face, and drops your now-linked fingers to her side. "I told you I looked you up, doc."

Your stomach flips and you're not sure why, but Raven shoots you a cheeky smile, like she knows. You shake your head, smile pulling at your lips without permission or even conscious thought.

"Are you staying around here?" You ask with as much careless curiosity as you can pull off while your fingers are still tangled with hers.

She smiles more naturally, happily, and nods. "Got a job in the research lab at the hospital. Literally going to be attached to campus by the flyover bridge. I start Monday."

You can feel your own smile widen, stretching muscles that have barely twitched in years. "Coffee, lunchtime?" You ask before you can second-guess yourself. _She__'s not a student, she's a _graduate_. This is fine._

"Which day?" She asks brightly, switching her weight to her other leg.

"Any of them," you murmur with a shrug, eyes on her face. "All of them."

And Raven laughs and squeezes your hand and nods. "Yes," she agrees, eyes bright, "yes."

* * *

Two months in, you still meet Raven for coffee or lunch at least once every week. It's your last week before the new students flood in, and the returning students reappear, and your whole world has tilted on its axis since the last time you delivered any lectures or marked any essays because now you have Raven, and you can't count any more - even on both hands and both feet - how many times you've seen her on a one-to-one basis.

You're getting to know each other, and while you haven't talked about your recovery, or her mother, or her leg, you're understanding how to read between the lines of what she _does _say.

The job is going well, although she doesn't get on with all of her colleagues. The line of research they've set her on sounds absolutely fascinating. You're enraptured every time she starts to explain some part of it, and you quickly shut down her apologies when she thinks she's gone on too long, until she can talk about her work for your entire meeting without feeling guilty at all.

She seems irritated at the attention paid to her brace by her workmates, and you're irrationally angry, on her part, at each and every lingering eye in the cafe.

She asks about you, too, and you talk animatedly about some of the journal articles you're working on during the break and some of the classes you're going to be teaching when the semester begins. She takes a real interest and it amazes you, every single time.

Eventually, you find you have nothing else to tell her about work, and one of your lunches falls on a bad day, and she _knows._

"What's wrong?" She asks, reaching for your arm, and the touch of her rough fingers on the inside of your wrist is electric, her thumb on the bone branding. It gives you strength, and you pick at your food as you explain your complicated relationship with Clarke; how yesterday was her birthday, how she has ignored your calls all week, how her card was returned unopened, but you know - from your ex-colleagues who are now her colleagues - that she's fine.

It's the first foray into something personal, and you don't tell Raven _why_ you don't get on with your own daughter, but you worry your ring, and she listens, and it's _everything_ to you.

* * *

After that, odd bits of personal information crop up more easily between you. You learn that Raven was taken in by the family next door after her mother's death, and fell for their son, but he is in prison now. You don't ask why, because you don't want to break the strange bond between you, where odd bits of information are offered up but not pushed for.

You tell her that you lost your husband four years ago now, and her eyes drop to the ring on your necklace. She reaches for it slowly, the same way you reached for her essay so long ago, and you let her lift the heavy titanium and examine the shimmer of colours.

"What was his name?" She asks quietly.

You sigh, and smile. "Jake," you tell her. "He was the best man I've ever known."

Raven smiles thinly, tremulously. "So was Finn, once," she says, and lets Jake's ring rest gently against your breastbone again.

You're surprised to learn, when new and older students have arrived and you're busy telling her about the trouble you're having getting a thirty-year-old undergraduate back into the swing of education, that she is older than Clarke by five years.

"I thought you were the usual undergraduate age," you tell her honestly, and she laughs, flipping her hair dramatically.

"Well, thank you," she says cheekily, eyes bright with mirth. "It's the Hispanic blood, I reckon."

And you smile back, thinking that her smile, her laugh, they're becoming more addictive to you than morphine or fentanyl or diazepam had ever been.

* * *

You realise with a shock ten days into October, after listening to some colleagues complain about the students whose behaviour is making their sober-for-October challenge very challenging indeed, that you haven't touched a drop of alcohol since you told Raven about Clarke.

You tell her so at your next lunch, tapping nervously on the table-top. She positively beams at you.

"I know it wasn't an addiction, but it's easy to swap one thing for the other," she tells you earnestly, as if you don't know. "It's so good that you haven't."

"But I think I have," you murmur, too quietly for her to hear, watching her dig enthusiastically into her jacket potato.

* * *

Christmas is approaching, and you realise with another start of surprise that there's only two people you want to buy gifts for.

You put cards in the post, knowing that Clarke's will come back unopened but unwilling to give up trying, and sending cursory notes out to all the distant colleagues and friends scattered across the globe. There's no other family left to send to.

You buy Jackson a home relaxation kit and a voucher for two to a spa, writing '_I__'m so sorry_' on the tag. You know it will make him laugh and complain that you spend too much, but honestly he's the closest thing to family you have now - and you really did drop him in it at work.

You leave a note in the faculty staff room apologising for the lack of cards, explaining that you're donating to charity instead. You lean it against a couple of tins of the usual Christmas-time tins of chocolates and biscuits. They're all gone in three days, the note left forlornly on the table, and you wonder how many of your colleagues - other than those who share modules with you - even know your name.

That leaves the last gift, and you find you are at a loss.

You're running out of lunches with Raven, but you just can't think of a gift that adequately sums up her sudden importance to you; how much you lean on her.

* * *

At your second-to-last lunch before the break, you catch her - early, for once - playing with her own necklace at the table while she waits. You've never seen it before, but the chain is unusually long, so it probably hides well below her clothing. The pendant is harsh, angular, and you lower yourself down opposite her, letting her come out of her thoughts quietly.

She blinks at you and smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

"Hey," you say softly. "What's wrong?"

She bites her lip and looks, suddenly, like an unsure student again. You reach for her forearm, fingers on the inside of her wrist, thumb on the bone, just as she had for you months before.

"I just had my last visit with Finn," she tells you, and you realise then that she's in skinny jeans and a shirt - her student clothes, not her work uniform.

"Your _last_ visit?" You prompt quietly, stroking gently, and she sighs.

"I can't live my whole life on weekly visits," she admits finally, "I can't keep going in there and wearing his necklace and letting him believe that we'll be together if he ever gets out. I can't let _myself_ believe it. I'm not sure I even want it."

Your eyes drop to the pendant and you reach for it slowly, just as she'd reached for Jake's ring. Raven gives it up without comment, but grudgingly, and you examine the angular metal and smile.

"It's a Raven."

She nods, and suddenly tears her hand from yours, reaching both hands up, lifting the long chain over her head and holding it out to you, desperately, wordlessly.

You take it, nonplussed, and look at her, the question written wordlessly on your face.

"I- I can't get rid of it," she tells you. "I can't. But I can't keep it."

You understand, then. Raven doesn't take pain medication - not for her injury, not for a headache, not for stomach cramps or broken bones. She doesn't rely on anyone. She's terrified of needing something.

She rescued you, and now it's your turn to do this one thing for her.

You tuck the necklace carefully into your pocket and pat it, and she smiles, relieved.

The talk for the rest of your lunch is about Christmas, and your plans. It peters out in plenty of time to get back to work, since Raven has volunteered for the Christmas shift at the lab, and you have no plans whatsoever.

* * *

In the end, you buy her a simple necklace to replace the one she gave up; a clear stone hanging from circlet of silver through which the chain is threaded. It's not flashy, it's not unique, but you like that it's circular; neverending. The romantic buried deep under the scientist within you thinks - hopes - that maybe this is one friendship you get to keep, because she saved you and brought you back to yourself.

That little stone is like a star, and sometimes - when you're at home, flopped on the sofa staring at your plain ceiling - you wonder if perhaps that's where she came from. The stars.

You wrap the box up with a little note - '_one addiction for another, maybe__' _\- and hope that your black humour isn't unappreciated. You think maybe she knows that she is your new addiction.

You pass it to her with a scarlet envelope, your cheeks matching, on your last lunch before Christmas. In the quiet of the campus cafe - all the students already on Christmas break - it seems much more personal and intimate.

She smiles softly, shakes her head. "I don't need gifts, Abby," she tells you, and you shrug, not sure how to answer her. She smiles more widely, and produces a gold envelope that no doubt contains your Christmas card, and you match her smile tooth for tooth. You can admit, in your own mind, that you'd thought she might get you a card; she hadn't talked about many other friends. You're ridiculously pleased that you were right, that you mean something to her too.

Then she's popping a long, thin box next to the envelope and you blink dumbly at it. She rolls her eyes and laughs.

"Th- thank you," you stutter, and she pats your hand.

"You're welcome. And thank you, for whatever this is. Are we saving them?"

You blink and shrug and nod, not really sure how to answer her, and she laughs again. "Then I'll text you and say thank you when I've opened it," she suggests, and you smile properly at her this time.

"Okay," you say agreeably, and tap your number into her phone when she produces it, feel your own vibrate in your pocket as she messages you a waving hand emoji.

This time - for the first time - when you stand, you reach for her and draw her into a hug, and she's tense and unsure, but you feel the moment she relaxes and hugs you back.

"Merry Christmas, Raven," you murmur, and her cheek - the one pressed against your face, the one you slapped two years ago - creases and pushes into a smile.

"Merry Christmas, Abby."

* * *

Her gift is a fountain pen, engraved with your name, and a matching mechanical pencil, with lead supplies and green ink cartridges already lined up. Both are fashioned a little like scalpels, without any sharp edges, and you weigh the familiar shape, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. You think back to her essay feedback session - how many pencils you snapped and sharpened, how many lidless pens and penless lids were scattered across your desk, and smile, touched at her thoughtfulness.

_Thank you, Raven. They__'re perfect. Happy Christmas,_ you send, and she texts back a heart and a photo of some petri dishes containing what might be carbon fibre chips. You belatedly remember she's at work, and wonder whether she's enjoying the solitude, rather than feeling suffocated in cloying loneliness.

Jackson popped in yesterday with a fully-prepared Christmas dinner and a hamper of seasonal goodies, "because you don't eat enough, workaholic, and beans on toast is not a Christmas meal". He pressed a kiss to your cheek, leaving with Christmas wishes shouted over his shoulder in a flurry of hailstones.

Clarke had been radio silent but for the returned Christmas card.

It's almost six in the evening before your phone chimes again, and your stomach swoops as you open it to see the necklace you chose resting on olive skin, dark eyes creased in a smile. _I love it. Thank you. Hope you__'ve had a good Christmas x,_ the message reads, and you chew your lip, wondering whether to reply.

_You__'re welcome,_ you decide on, _hope work was okay. X _

Raven doesn't reply to that, although you're not sure you expected her to. You realise that you are pleased you have her number now, though, because you hadn't set your next lunch date and they've become an integral part of your working week.

Since her graduation, you've also graduated, somehow, to being Raven's _friend._

You spend the rest of the evening marking, using your new pen, enjoying the feeling of the cold, heavy metal between your fingers.


	3. The House Calls

You both fall back into an easy routine of weekly lunches after Christmas. Your schedule is a little more hectic this semester, and she has a couple of research assistants to manage now, so you never manage more than once a week any more; but that once now includes a hug as you go your separate ways, and an easy banter that you think may have begun with your note in her Christmas gift.

She fiddles with her new necklace often, and you notice her blush when you catch her.

Sometimes, you text one another after work now, if something in particular is going on. She messages you after a lecture you'd told her about where you were filling in for a colleague, and it really wasn't your area of expertise; you tell her you thought it had gone fairly well, and she replies that of course it had, because you're a good teacher.

You don't tell her it made you blush to the tips of your ears.

You text her in the evening after her funding application is due in, and she sends back a thumbs-up and crossed fingers, followed by, _Think it was okay, thank you for asking._

It's an easy, gentle friendship.

You don't know how to function without it.

* * *

In March, she takes you by surprise when she turns up for lunch in a beautiful greenish suit dress. She's wearing deep red lipstick and dark eye make up and she didn't even make this much effort for her own _graduation. _Your mouth doesn't seem to want to close, because you're realising just how muscular her arms are and how flat her stomach is and how _strong_ she looks. You've never been less aware of the brace on her leg than in this moment.

And she still has your necklace on.

She sits awkwardly and sighs, smiling wryly as she gestures at herself, and you hurriedly close your mouth. "The research grant interview is today. Apparently I have to make an effort. I argued that looking like a clown won't get us the money, but apparently they disagree."

You gape at her for a minute, and then swallow. "Raven, you don't look like a clown, you look fantastic," you tell her honestly.

She smiles shyly at you, and then looks away and shrugs. "I also tick the female, not-straight, disabled, non-white boxes," she points out. "That's good for any employer, but all of that in a science and engineering setting is like gold dust."

She seems to realise she's said something that might surprise you, because her eyes widen comically and she bites down on her lower lip, hard.

"You're only disabled if you consider yourself so," you tell her seriously. "That brace is proof of your incredible work, and I've never seen it hold you back."

She blinks at you, evidently not expecting that, and smiles. She still looks unsure, though, and you sigh, reaching for her, your fingers and thumb resting around her wrist in a position that seems to have accidentally become your norm.

"And if you're worried about what else you said, don't. Jackson is more like family to me than my _actual_ family, and he and his boyfriend are at a spa day right now that I bought them for Christmas. He spent six months trying to tell me himself before I put him out of his misery and told him I'd figured it out years ago."

Raven laughs, then, and the tension leaks out of her shoulders. You let her wrist go.

"What did he say?"

You grin. "He didn't believe me because that meant I knew before he did. I told him _everyone_ knew before he did, and he shoved me right in the shoulder. Got caught by our boss and had to go for three anger management classes. He's the least violent person I've ever met."

Your smile at the story fades as you accidentally remind yourself of your own actions. Without permission, your hand drifts up to Raven's cheek, and you see that she's grinning at the story too.

She covers your hand with hers, leaning into it. Her expression turns serious.

"Please, let that go. _Please_. It's so long ago."

And you nod, you promise her that you'll try, and she turns her face into your hand and kisses your palm. Your stomach swoops and your eyes fill with tears and you swallow, hard.

When you stand to hug her goodbye, her fitted dress is clinging to her hips. You squeeze her tighter than usual, and she squeezes back.

"Thanks," she murmurs, and you just roll your eyes at her, but you know that it means something to her - your easy acceptance, your lack of questions despite knowing of her history with Finn.

You watch her leave, and realise you didn't wish her luck, and hurry to text her. She sends a heart back almost immediately, and later in the day, _We got it!_

You smile so widely your cheeks ache.

* * *

In May, one of your lunch dates falls on the anniversary of her results day. You can smell the flowers she bought you from the moment you wake in the morning, and it's interspersed with gunpowder and burning flesh.

Raven takes one look at you and grips your hand, dragging you from the cafe into an empty office, going back to fetch your food.

It occurs to you afterwards, hours afterwards, that it's the first time you haven't paid for your meals separately; she bought both today, and she picked your favourite.

She comes in with both meals, backing into the room, limping noticeably, and you take your plate with a sigh of thanks, and subconsciously reach for her leg. She twitches on reflex and an apology bubbles to your lips, but she relaxes again and shakes her head at you, forestalling it.

"I can't feel my leg," she tells you. "From about here." Her hand falls to mid-thigh. "It's my hip that hurts sometimes, from the pressure of dragging it around."

You nod your understanding, filing the information away, relishing in every new thing she tells you - especially this, such a closely-guarded secret, for so long.

Then she's reaching for your arm, fingers around your wrist again, thumb on the bone, and as your heart jumps you realise suddenly how intimate a gesture it is - she can feel your pulse, she can feel your blood pounding beneath her fingers.

"What's wrong?" She asks, and you want to cry.

Your free hand almost dislodges your plate as your fingers hurry to find your necklace.

"Today is… hard."

She blinks at you. "Not just because I was mean to you, I assume."

_Of course, she remembered. Of course she did._

You laugh and shake your head. "No, I was a mess that day too. Can you believe it's been a two years?"

Raven smiles gently, indulgently. "Don't change the subject," she admonishes.

Your smile falls and you shake your head. "Today is the day I took this ring off his finger," you tell her quietly. "Today is the day the whole world exploded, and I had to take all his valuables off and prepare for surgery, because I was the only one who could do it. And all of those rules we have here about not operating on loved ones go out of the window."

You stare out of the grimy window at the sunlight playing through the leaves of the willows.

"There's nothing green in Afghanistan except for army kit," you murmur. "Chinooks and cases of medical equipment and the insides of the land rovers and Kevlar helmets, and the twelve-by-twelve tents that are about as protective as a piece of cling film against a grenade."

You're back there, and you know from the gentle but insistent pressure on your arm that Raven can tell. She's pulling you back.

You blink yourself back into the room again and look at her, shake your head wordlessly.

"You were in the reserves," she says, and it's not a question. You remember the times she's told you, _I looked you up._

"Army reserves. Medic," you agree. "I treated soldiers and locals for all sorts of ailments and injuries. Delivered kids, stopped bleeding when limbs were blown off. Didn't matter who or what or when. Nothing sterile in sight, just sand and scrub and weapons."

Raven tugs you back to reality again and you shake yourself.

"What did Jake do?" She asked curiously.

You sigh. "Engineer," you say, and your hand comes up to fiddle with your ring again, absent-minded. "Full-time serving combat engineer. I knew as soon as the radio went that it was him. '_Sappers down__',_ that's all it said, but I knew." You take a deep breath. "Four of them died. Two of them survived - one's pretty disfigured from the burns, one lost his legs. They were supposed to be laying a bridge, just a simple structure over a crevasse that was a bit too steep and narrow for the rovers. Guess the insurgents figured. Full of IEDs."

Raven is stroking a gentle, comforting pattern on your wrist now, and it grounds you.

"Jake lost his right arm and right leg. My team were the only medical team inside Kandahar, we were working on five of them at once. One was… one was futile." You swallow as you remember the headless, burned body on the sixth cot in the Chinook, the dignity sheet whipped off and stuffed hurriedly against a massively-bleeding wound in his neighbour's abdomen.

"Five critically ill and a headless corpse on a helicopter over a warzone." You laugh, and it's hollow. "We saved three. I was so relieved we saved Jake, but if… I wonder if we could have saved more, if I'd not had any connection to him. If I hadn't stayed with him so long."

You blink their faces, slack, pale, glazed eyes, from your mind.

"That's four years ago to the day," you conclude. "Almost the worst day of my life."

Raven hesitates, and you know what she's going to ask, but you wait for her to gather up the courage - break your unspoken rule.

"Why… why isn't he here now?"

Your eyes drift to the window again. "He came round in hospital back here. Back home. He couldn't understand how he wasn't over there any more, how many of his friends or bits of his friends were gone. He didn't… he didn't connect with reality. I think if he'd ever realised that he'd lost both right limbs, he'd have had so many more mental problems anyway, because he was a footballer and he was right handed and if it had been both legs then a wheelchair, but one- one of each-" you break off, and Raven's shushing you gently.

"He thought they were still out there, the first day. He tried to attack the nurse, thinking he was an insurgent, and he fought from his bed like he still had both arms."

Raven squeezes your wrist and you smile thinly.

"It took him four days to connect with the new nurse they assigned, and distract her long enough on her meds round. And he took all the pills counted out for each patient in his room. There were eight of them, all on strong drugs, all amputees or with traumatic injuries of some sort. He died from respiratory depression, but if that hadn't killed him, something else would have. Blood clots, GI bleed, stroke… something. There's no way he'd have survived all those meds."

Raven, despite her olive skintone, looked pale and ill. You twist your arm out of her grasp, wrap it around your stomach, feeling like you could poison her with everything you're holding in.

She doesn't reach for you again, but she doesn't leave, either.

"Five days?" She asks, and you don't know why she wants to know, but you nod tiredly.

_Five days from saving him in surgery to him dying in hospital._

She nods, and this time she does reach for you, and you let her interlink your fingers and lean her head on your shoulder, suddenly exhausted.

* * *

She texts you on Saturday evening, and asks if you can meet for lunch the next day.

It's new; you've never met anywhere but that one cafe in your shared lunch hour.

You text her back, cautious, unsure, not convinced you really want to go out.

_Or just come over,_ her reply reads, and you know she's read between your lines. _I get you might not want to go out anywhere, but I don__'t think you should be on your own._

You're touched.

You tell her you normally just stay in the house all day, and she's welcome to come too as long as she eats takeaway pizza, and you text her your address. It feels strange that she doesn't already know where you live, at this point. It feels strange that she's never been in your house, and you've never been in hers.

You don't tell her that you normally don't get out of bed, on this day each year. You call in sick to work if it's not a weekend.

She arrives the next morning, far too early for lunch, and you know because you hear an unfamiliar engine on your quiet road and watch the motorbike hum to a stop outside, and you watch her shake her hair loose from the helmet. You realise it's the first time you've ever seen it down.

The bike is modified, and it takes her a moment to unseat herself and strap her brace over her leathers. Your stomach swoops for maybe the third time since you first saw her pull in as she stands, tests the brace, and walks towards your door, helmet swinging from one hand, gloves stuffed inside.

There's no knock. You wait for a couple of minutes before you shuffle to the door and open it.

"I'm sorry, I'm early," she apologises almost immediately, and you realise that you don't actually mind at all. You just smile and step back so she can come in.

She hesitates in your porch, and your analytical gaze sweeps down to the boots that are tucked into the trousers under the brace. You take the helmet out of her hands and lead her through the next door into the hallway, so she can sit on the stairs to take everything off. She smiles gratefully at your tact, and you smile back, leaving the helmet beside her and going to boil the kettle.

By the time she's left in her usual attire, brace in place, leathers and bike helmet and gloves piled neatly in the porch, you have two steaming coffees - hers, black with sugar, yours, white without - sat on the coffee table. She glances appreciatively at the open plan living space, and settles beside you on the sofa. It's the first time you're not sat on separate chairs and you feel hyper-aware of how close she is.

"It's a lovely house," she compliments.

"Thank you," you say. "It still feels quite new, but I couldn't stay in the old one, not without…" you shrug awkwardly and pick at a cushion, and she covers your hands with hers and turns to face you. You can see so much understanding in her eyes that it pushes all the air from your lungs in a whoosh.

* * *

She stays all day, and you eat takeaway pizza together and a pint tub of ice cream each, and sometimes you talk and sometimes you just sit, and at some point you're certain you fall asleep because when you wake up she's lying on her front on the floor, the necklace you bought her just grazing the carpet, twisting some wire into a solid shape. She looks up at you when you shift and smiles, and you smile back, unbelievably grateful that you met her.

It's not until the end of the day, as dusk begins and you're both back on the sofa, that Raven asks quietly, "Is this why you two don't talk?"

You follow her gaze to Clarke's graduation photo, and swallow.

"I knew he wanted to die," you say quietly. "We don't speak because I accepted it, expected it, after the first couple of days. She didn't. She couldn't. She blames me for not trying harder, or for botching the surgery. For not having her dad here any more."

Raven hesitates, then lifts an arm over your shoulders and pulls you into her side. You let her, and you realise with a start of surprise that she's taller than you, and solid, pure muscle.

"I'm sorry," she whispers into your hair, and you let your tears fall for the first time all day.

When she leaves, it's nearly dark, and she sits on the stairs again to pull her leathers on. You hover, full of nervous energy, and she smirks up at you.

"Yes, Abby, I'll text you when I'm safely home, because you had no idea I had bike and now you're worried."

You just stare at her, amazed at how she so easily reads your mind, and she smiles fondly, shaking her head.

You watch her tail light out of sight.

* * *

You pay for your next shared lunch to repay the one she bought the week before, and it becomes a regular occurrence; you take it in turns to just pay the whole bill.

The friendship feels even easier, now, more familiar. It might have something to do with knowing how Raven fits into your front room, but you can't be sure.

* * *

Your talk turns to journal articles again as you begin planning your upcoming semester of mandatory research leave. The students have all got their results, so you're out of marking and other educational things to do; your summer has begun.

She doesn't say it, but you can see in the tense way Raven holds her shoulders that she assumes your lunches will stop while you're officially off campus. You're sure to work into the conversation how much you enjoy working in the campus library, and how much you procrastinate at home, and how much fun it will be to play at being a student again, until you can see the tension unwind from her form. You don't tell her that you really only want to come to campus to see her.

* * *

On the anniversary of her graduation, Raven buys you lunch even though it's absolutely your turn. Neither of you mention that it's the unofficial anniversary of your friendship, of you being confident enough in your status of 'clean' to show her, but you know that the lunch gesture is for exactly that - a congratulations, a thank you - even as you talk about her fantastic grades and the graduation ceremony and how well work has been going and how much she misses studying.

You thank her gently for lunch, pull her into a hug, and as you let go, ready to leave, she blurts, "It's my birthday."

You look up at her, and her hands are over her mouth, eyes comically wide, and you just stare at her, not sure who is more shocked at her statement.

You recover first.

"You should have said something," you admonish gently. "Happy birthday, Raven. It was _definitely_ my turn to buy lunch, then, wasn't it?"

She fiddles with the necklace you bought her for Christmas and smiles shyly. "I… never celebrate my birthday. Never have. But last year's was… last year's was the best."

You roll your eyes. "A first class honours degree is a pretty good birthday gift in anyone's book," you tease.

She blinks, shakes her head. "Yeah, it was amazing. But there was someone there to see me get it. And you… you stopped. _For me._"

Your eyebrow raises by itself, because it's the first time either of you has directly referenced your addiction since you shyly explained your lack of alcohol intake last October. It's definitely the first time either of you has mentioned your uninvited presence at her graduation ceremony.

"That… that's not why you're still here, is it?" You ask blankly. "So I don't… you know."

Raven laughs, shakes her head. "You might have done it for me, but I didn't help you, you did it yourself. I'm not tied to your recovery. I actually like you."

You blush to the tips of your ears and she grins, tugging your own smile out of you even as you think, _you are tied to it. You__'re my new addiction._

She kisses your cheek and it startles you. You're not in time to catch her before she leaves.

* * *

You text her, later. Even though you've had each other's numbers for over six months now, it's still not something you do often - just when something unusual is going on. It always makes you a little nervous.

_Birthday dinner?_

Her reply takes half an hour, and you're sure by then that she has plans.

_Only if you__'re not busy,_ the message says instead, and you smile probably too widely and refuse to consider what that means.

_Never. I__'ll pick you up._

It's only a couple of minutes this time before she replies, and you read the message with some astonishment, and then laugh.

_From where? Do you know where I live? Stalker ;)_

You shake your head at her antics. She sends you her address.

You pick her up at seven on the dot, self-conscious in a form-fitting black dress, and she slides into the passenger seat and gapes.

You both eat Italian food and drink non-alcoholic drinks and talk, and you pay the bill, and she smiles at you so sweetly that you're certain you'll melt into the leather-backed seats. You drop her off and she says, shyly, "Best birthday ever," and for the second time in a single day she kisses your cheek and vanishes before you can react.

You watch her let herself into her mid-terrace and sigh, smiling before you head home.

* * *

After that, your campus lunch dates are sometimes dinner dates or weekend lunches in cafes and restaurants around the city, and you recognise that your friendship with her is morphing all the time.

It's still the most important thing in your life besides your absent daughter.


	4. The Explanations

The day Raven rings you for the first time, you're working on the third draft of a journal article. Your research year is almost up, and you're so glad, because your patience with journals and libraries and literature reviews and peer feedback is wearing thin.

Your screen lights up with her name and the photo she sent you last Christmas with her necklace on. Your stomach drops with worry and you don't hesitate to answer it.

"Raven?" You ask, chewing your lip, worrying that she's come off her motorbike or the lab has blown up or -

"_Abby? Hey. Sorry, I just__… I… you know what, sorry I disturbed you_," she rushes out, and hangs up.

You stare at your phone for a second, eyebrows drawing together, and then shake your head and phone her back.

"Raven, don't hang up on me. What's wrong?"

She sighs, and you realise with a start that she might be crying.

"_Finn was re-sentenced today. They__'re moving him to a psych ward_," she says finally, voice surprisingly steady.

"Are you at home?" You ask briskly.

"_Y-yeah__…_"

You can hear the question in Raven's tone. "I'll be half an hour," you tell her, and hang up, striding out of your home study and down the stairs.

You make it there in twenty minutes.

* * *

She opens the door for you and you see the redness to her eyes, her shell-shocked expression. You step in uninvited, guide her to her own sofa, and hurriedly poke around the kitchen for all the necessaries for coffee.

You sit down gently beside her, drinks deposited on the wicker table, and pull her hands into your lap, wrapping your fingers around one of her wrists in your usual hold. "I thought you hadn't seen him since before Christmas?" You ask gently.

She pulls her other hand free to absent-mindedly play with her necklace. It makes your stomach turn over.

"I haven't," she says. "I'm not upset, but I think… I think that's _why_ I'm upset." She stares desperately at you, willing you to understand, and while you mostly do, you also don't, because she's never told you the whole story.

"A psych ward," you murmur, trying to put the pieces together. "Does that mean there's no release date?"

Raven nods. "Indefinite incarceration," she whispers. "He… he might die in there. And I'm… I'm okay with that."

You look at her - brave, selfless, damaged, beautiful - and you can't understand. You don't understand.

She sees it in your eyes and laughs. "I sound heartless."

She pulls her hand away, but you tug it back. "No," you tell her. "You have the biggest heart of anyone I know."

She sighs. "Finn is Finlay Collins. _The_ Finlay Collins."

You blink, wondering why the name sounds familiar. It takes a moment.

"He took a Samurai sword into his school and attacked his friends," you recall.

Raven shrugged. "Sort of. Finn's a year younger than me. He got into fights a lot, looking out for me when people took the piss because of mom. And then there was that big school shooting that caused all the riots, and his cousin was nearly killed in the shooting. He got caught up in one of the local riots about it, got pushed down and trodden on. He adores her, his cousin I mean, and he thought she was dead. Then some kid at our school made a joke about the shooting, and he took the stupid sword in to scare him. And then once everyone saw it, it was chaos like the riots, and he just snapped and thought we were all out to get him."

You blink as your brain makes sense of the torrent of words that Raven had poured out. "It sounds… it sounds like he should have been on the psych ward the whole time," you venture gently.

Raven nods. "He was, as a juvie. It all got mucked up when he transferred to an adult unit."

You understand that. You had a lot of young adult patients in A&E with significant traumatic injuries from self-harm who had slipped through the net when they turned eighteen.

Something Raven said flags in your mind.

"He thought you…you were _all_ out to get him?" You ask slowly.

Raven flinches.

"I lived with him, I was closest to him. I tried to talk him down after he'd had his rampage, or he'd have kept going. He was so blinded… he knocked me into the wall and I fell. He put the sword through my back, touched my spinal cord, severed some nerves." She pats her brace. "But that brought him back to reality. He dropped it, and sat with me until the paramedics came."

You stare at her, and then gather her up into a hug.

"Do not pity me," a disgruntled, muffled voice says into your shoulder, and Raven's hands, sandwiched between you, beat weakly against your stomach. It flips.

"I'm not," you assure her. "I'm feeling strangely proud of your bravery."

The words feel too stiff, too formal, to really express what you mean, but you think she understands, because when you let her go, she's almost smiling.

* * *

You realise, at a summertime lunch in a new cafe somewhere off the high street, how well you know each other. She orders both your drinks without asking, and you order food first, because she always gestures for you to do so. When the food arrives, the waiter puts the meals down the wrong way around, and you can see the wrinkle of her nose as you easily swap dishes, waving away his apology.

You watch her scoop the leaf off the top of her pasta with her fork and take two sips of her drink before picking up her knife, swapping hands, and starting to eat.

Like clockwork.

She must notice that you're not moving, because she falters and looks up, chewing.

Once she's finished her mouthful, she frowns. "What?"

You realise you're smiling at her, and shake yourself free of the strange spell. "Nothing, I was just… nothing."

"You were watching me eat, and it's weird," she tells you, kicking your shin under the table, and you laugh and kick gently back at her good leg.

"Brat," you accuse fondly.

"You started it," she mutters, and your smile feels like it could crack your face.

* * *

The next time you see each other, it's a clear, cloudless summer day, and Raven is practically vibrating with excitement. "It's the perfect biking day," she tells you, and proceeds to twist your arm into getting on the back of her infernal two-wheeled contraption.

Seeing her hair flowing freely down her back, unbound, for only the third time that you recall, might have something to do with your eventual agreement. Why she has a spare set of leathers that fit you, you have no idea - and you choose not to ask.

The spare helmet is uncomfortable, and you feel awkward and unstable as you climb on. It occurs to you that, other than comfort in emergencies - Jake's anniversary, Finn's resentencing - you've never been anywhere together except somewhere to eat.

Raven instructs you on where to put your feet, and how to hold on to her, and you can feel your ears burning under the helmet as you wrap your arms around her waist in a vice-like grip, an undignified squeak coming out of your mouth as Raven tips the bike upright and rolls it off its stand. She laughs quietly and you can feel her stomach rumbling with it.

She twists to flick down your visor and eases off your driveway onto the road.

Soon, you're flying, and you forget to be afraid and loosen your grip a little and unbury your helmeted head from her shoulder to watch the scenery zip smoothly by. You're surprised by how quiet it is, and you risk letting go with one hand to pull her hair out of your mouth and let out a small 'whoop'.

It's insanity, it's something you swore you'd never do, and you hate that when she pulls back onto your drive an hour later, you don't want to get off.

* * *

She remembers Clarke's birthday, and she invites herself over without asking, without mentioning it at all. She just turns up on your doorstep and you let her in wordlessly.

She's been round so often now that she steps naturally into the kitchen to make you both a drink, glancing through to the living room as she turns to fill the kettle. You're sure you're failing as a host when you don't stop her, but something about her feeling so at home in your space intoxicates you.

She meanders into the living room while the kettle hums its way to boiling and stares down at your sketchbook, abandoned on the table when she'd knocked.

"Wow," she breathes, and you walk over to stand at her shoulder, looking down at the work-in-progress.

"It's not finished," you say needlessly, and she reaches slowly for it, picking it up and staring at every inch of the raven filling the A3 page, head complete, eye so real it could be watching her, but wings and feet only roughly sketched.

"Abby, I had no idea you could draw."

You shrug and smile, and she glances at you as she reaches to turn a page, asking silent permission. You nod, going to answer the kettle's call, and making the drinks.

You find her on the sofa when you return, staring down at a portrait of Jake on your wedding day, proudly in uniform and smiling. On the opposite page is a similar sketch, the same size, the same face, but haunted and broken. The day before he died.

You sit beside her and she grips your hand wordlessly, fingers gently encircling your wrist.

It takes her a few minutes, but she flips reverently through the other pages, and swallows.

"They're amazing," she says, and you just smile serenely at her.

"Thank you. For being here," you clarify, and she just smiles back.

* * *

A few days later, she asks when your birthday is. You tell her, and she doesn't mention it again, except to tell you to keep the evening free if you don't already have plans with Jackson or anyone. You're not sure whether it's a good thing or not that she's clearly plotting something, and you don't like how long you have to wait to find out what; your plans together have only ever been made a week or so in advance, and now Raven has nearly four to play with.

You decide not to mention that you only catch up with Jackson on the phone every few weeks now, and haven't seen him in person in a while. You miss him, but he's building a life that you don't fit into, and he seems happy - and you have Raven.

The birthday plans turn out to be nothing too sinister. You meet for dinner, and she takes you there on her bike, and she pays and it's nothing mortifying. It's just dinner. No singing or cake and candles.

And then she gives you a birthday card and a gift of a small, portable sketchbook and a tin of pencils, with a note on that says _maybe for road trips?_, and you draw her into the closest hug you can manage to hide the tears in your eyes, because that note means she wants you around. And that means more than she knows.

* * *

The first time you go on a road trip is the very next week. It's dry, crisp, and the leaves are fully orange and beginning to fall. You don't go far, only into the countryside, but Raven takes you on a two-hour ride through country lanes bordered by dry stone walls and past thatched village pubs into a huge woodland lay-by. There are picnic tables and bikers everywhere, and Raven buys you both a bacon sandwich from the tiny food booth before you can argue.

You draw her with the top half of her leathers rolled down, sat confidently at the picnic table with her elbow propped on her helmet, watching the movement in and out and commenting occasionally on the nicest bikes.

She doesn't glance down while you work, but when she sees it before you suit back up to leave, she smiles cheekily. "Is that how you see me?" She asks, and you frown, because you thought you'd captured her likeness quite well. Then she leans in and murmurs, "For the record, you look great in leathers too," and you blush to the tips of your ears and hide your grin by pulling the helmet down hurriedly over your face.

She smirks and climbs on in front of you.

* * *

At the end of October, your hypotheses from one of your journal articles is picked up, and you're given a two-week sabbatical to brief, and lead the start of, the practical research phase.

Raven, two of her colleagues, and their assistants are your team.

You explain the concept, throat drier than it has ever been lecturing hundreds of students at a time, and outline a methodology. Then, two weeks of long days are spent refining it, being pulled every which way by engineering and science specialists, and falling into bed exhausted each night.

You spend every day with Raven, but somehow, that makes you miss your lunch meetings. You find that the two of you work wonderfully together, but you disagree often, and the energy between you bristles with discomfort when you do. Everyone feels it.

You don't tell them how well you know each other, and they don't ask.

* * *

On the Wednesday of the second week, end in sight, you - always in tune to where she is - look up as Raven walks through the door, limping visibly. It's a shock; your recent trips out on the motorbike and the lab coat covering her brace have pushed it to the back of your mind. You struggle to think of Raven as anything less than independent and strong, and seeing her pinched face is like a punch to the gut.

"Raven!" You hurry over, hands fluttering uselessly around her, and she rolls her eyes.

"It's fine, just slipped on the stairs, the brace needs some TLC," she tells you irritably.

You can see, now, where some of the metal is slightly misshapen. It squeaks each time she takes a step.

"Do you… Can I do anything?" You ask helplessly, and she shakes her head.

It's the most useless you've felt in months.

* * *

When she comes in the next morning, you can see that the brace is back in full working order, but the bags under her eyes and the lines around her mouth belie her pain and lack of sleep.

You send her home.

She argues with you, her colleagues looking on in alarm as your discussion turns into a shouting match in the lab.

She accuses you of playing doctor because you miss the clinical work.

You accuse her of lying about how much pain she's in.

She comes dangerously close to revealing the circumstances of your meeting as she cuts you off - "Fix yourself, Abby!" - and you realise that, no matter how clean you are, she can see that you're still struggling, you're still not mentally _well_. "Maybe if you weren't playing academic and doctor to avoid your own pain, you'd realise you suck at _both_ jobs."

The pain of her words takes your breath away, and you hate that your first thought is of the medication that might help.

_It won__'t help,_ you remind yourself firmly.

You push the feeling away.

"You're not fine, Raven, and working today is making your condition worse."

"So what?" She explodes in retaliation. "Do nothing? Is that going to make my leg heal?"

You shake your head, only dimly recognising that it's a rhetorical question. "No, your leg is never going to heal. Our goal is pain reduction. That's it." You try to catch her eye as she looks away from you. "You can still be useful," you remind her softly.

She looks sharply at you, and shakes her head, turning to walk stiffly away. You regret the words almost as soon as you've said them.

At least she goes home.

* * *

She texts you, in the evening.

_I__'m sorry for what I said today._

You sigh, and ring her, knowing what needs to be said can't be done via messages.

She picks up, but she doesn't say anything.

"Raven, I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have spoken like your doctor, and I should have spoken to you privately to request you go home."

She sighs, and you can hear the tears in her voice. "I'm not going to disagree."

You chuckle at that. "Come in early in the morning. Let me look at your leg, and decide how to play tomorrow. I don't want you doing yourself any more damage."

She sighs again and you expect her to disagree, but she doesn't.

"All right. But only because I feel guilty."

You smile gently. "Don't," you whisper. "Goodnight, Raven. See you in the morning. Early."

She doesn't say anything before she hangs up.

You sleep fitfully.

* * *

In the morning, you arrive to find her already seated on one of the metal lab tables. It's otherwise empty. Her leg is braced, her lab coat slung carelessly next to her, and she doesn't look as tired.

Somehow, your heart beats doubly in your chest and your stomach flips with nerves when you see her. You realise you hate this atmosphere between you - a souped-up version of the one that rests between you from when you've disagreed on the methodology over the past couple of weeks.

_Time to fix it,_ you pray. _I hope this is the moment we fix it._

"Morning," you say gently. She smiles, and it doesn't quite reach her eyes but you take it as a win anyway. "Ready?" you ask her, dropping your bag next to the table as you approach, and she leans away, back onto her two hands.

"As I'll ever be," she replies, and you smile sadly at her.

"Sorry, I just need to…" you trail off, gesturing, and she nods her understanding, leaning back even further. You swallow as her long-sleeved shirt shifts over her abdominal muscles, and step into her personal space. Your left hand goes to her right thigh, fingers resting on the outside of her hip, and your right hand to her ankle, lifting it and watching the knee joint carefully.

It works as it should, but Raven stares detachedly at it. "Feels like it's someone else's," she mumbles. You smile gently at her, appreciating the honesty that has coloured her cheeks pink, as you palpate the hip joint with your left hand.

You rotate her leg and she shifts slightly. When you look up, she's blushed further, but gestures for you to carry on.

"It doesn't hurt," she says, but she doesn't expand any further.

You continue to manipulate the joints, feeling the movement of her hip under your fingers. You know it's normal, you know it's her weight - pulling the dead weight of her leg, even with the brace to keep her toes up and her knee flexing - is what is causing the pain.

"Alright," you say finally, releasing her, stepping back from the heat of her functioning leg resting against yours as she sits upright once more. "No pain right now?"

She shakes her head, and you reach forward and tip her chin up without thinking, looking into her eyes.

She startles at the contact and blinks, both pupils reacting swiftly to the darkness of closed eyes and then the lightness of the lab strip lighting you're pointing her face towards.

"I haven't taken anything," she snaps, and you let her go as if burned.

"I… I know, I was… I was seeing if you were lying to me. About being in pain," you tell her, shaken that she'd think anything other.

She relaxes. "So," she says, pushing herself to the edge of the table and onto her feet, landing very much within your personal space, smirking. "Am I all clear?" She's slightly behind you, in the end, and - as keeps surprising you - taller; you have to turn to face her, and the table digs into your back because she's so close.

Your stomach turns over again; your ears burn, and you swallow wordlessly and gather your confidence, glancing down at the brace and the hip you'd just manipulated.

"Apparently," you hedge, smirking back. It feels flirtatious; it feels loaded.

She smiles softly, and your eyes connect for a heavy moment. You're not sure what it means.

You let her stay at work, but you keep a close eye on her throughout the day, and you know that by lunchtime she's frustrated by it.

At the end of the day, with much handshaking and congratulations, the project planning is concluded. You are due to return to teaching on Monday, with Raven and her colleagues continuing the research alone.

You want to catch her, suggest dinner, but she's out of the door before you can.

* * *

In the end, you're too antsy at home to not _try_.

You find that you have an idea of where she might be, and a backup idea too.

_When did I get to know her so well?_

Although the first attempt fails, the backup pans out, and you find her sat at the bar, fiddling with some contraption or another. There's a screwdriver and a spanner beside her, and the juxtaposition with her surroundings makes you smile fondly.

The live pianist is in full swing, and the number is slow but beautiful.

It had surprised you, finding out that she loved live music enough to sit in piano bars or turn up to local bands playing in tiny pubs three cities over. You had a sneaking suspicion, from odd snippets you'd heard of her singing along quietly to the radio, that she was probably very good herself.

You slide in next to her, and she looks deliberately away from you. It makes your heart ache, and you let your eyes trace the pattern of the carpet as you consider how to fix this.

"You were right," you say eventually. She turns to look at you, and although her expression remains cold, you'll take it to keep her attention right now. "I am spread too thin," you agree gently, "and it wasn't my place to tell you how to manage your injury."

She sighs. "No, it wasn't," she agrees. "I'm sorry too. You already know I think you're a damn good teacher, and this project proves you're a good doctor too. Even without the registration."

You wonder for a moment when - if - you'd told her that you'd resigned it.

"I still know people, Raven, if you want-"

"Are you here as a doctor, or my boss?" She cuts you off. "Because I don't want to talk to one of you."

You gape at her for a moment, and then shake your head, because technically, _technically, _you're neither of those things.

You recognise, after a moment, that what she means is she doesn't want to talk about her own medical problems right now. The lab, the research, that's up for discussion.

The soft music, the singing, it suddenly pours into your mind, fills you with emotion. All the things you feel for the girl sat before you.

You disagree. You don't want to talk about the lab.

"I'm here as your friend," you tell her, and you nod as you say so. You've never been more sure of anything.

Her eyes search yours for a moment.

The woman serving arrives with a drink, and very quickly produces a second.

"Good," Raven says finally, passing one to you. "Then shut up and drink."

You take it from her, watching her mouth barely curl up at the corners, and smile, doing exactly that and watching her do the same as you both turn away from the bar to watch the pianist.

* * *

It's December when you turn up at hers unannounced for the first time. Since the incident at work and subsequent make-up at the piano bar, things between you have returned to status normal, but there's still an undercurrent you don't like, and you think you know how to fix it.

You hope you do, anyway, as you knock tentatively.

She frowns when she opens the door, but she beckons you inside.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"Nothing, exactly," you tell her, and she narrows her eyes at you and turns to the kitchen to make a coffee. You know she's waiting for you to speak, and you're going to, you're just choosing your words carefully.

Finally, when the coffee is nearly ready, you sigh.

"When I first took a box of diazepam from work, it was because I'd just lost my husband, I could feel myself losing my daughter, and I was stressed and understaffed at work. I didn't want an appointment with a colleague, so I treated it as stress and anxiety, and self-medicated."

She stares at you, and you misinterpret her expression for the first time in a long time. You _know_ her and all her faces now, but your own shame projects onto her and you're suddenly talking again, hurriedly.

"I know, I needed a prescription, I shouldn't have -"

She cuts you off. "I'm not judging you, Abby. I'm just listening. I never got an explanation from mom. I'm curious."

You close your mouth, and you smile at her, the black-winged angel that had saved you and never once asked why.

It was time she knew.

"The day of the funeral, Clarke wouldn't speak to me. And everything just…just _hurt, _so much. I had no idea before that grief could be a physical pain. I thought I could fix it, get through the day without that agony, but it didn't work. The fentanyl didn't touch it. And I tried morphine, and I was still taking the diazepam. The painkillers weren't doing enough, and I needed more of the diazepam to relax each time I took it, and it just… it just snowballed. Clarke moved out straight after the funeral and it was too easy to tell myself I needed the tablets to sleep, I needed the ampoules to feel whole, that I couldn't face the pain without it, and there was no-one there to tell me I was wrong."

You take a deep, steadying breath.

"I lost _everything_, the day I lost him. And the day you figured it out… I got my life back."

Your eyes are closed when she tentatively pulls you into a hug. It takes you by surprise.

"_You_ did that," she whispers, and you're shaking your head before she's finished speaking, but your arms snake around her waist without your permission and she's resting her chin on your head. It makes you feel younger, safer. Cared for.

"I'm so scared, Raven," you murmur, and she tightens her hold. "I'm so scared that one day, I'll go back there."

You feel her shake her head, and you pull back to look at her, whisper, "but you know what scares me more? The possibility that you won't stand by me." You look down at your coffee cup, pick it up, fiddle with it.

"Abby…" she's quiet. She sounds desperate, broken. "Have you ever loved someone so much that no matter what they do to you, or themselves, you take it?"

You blink at her._ Clarke,_ you think. _Jake._ Your nod is barely perceptible.

"I will be here, no matter what. But I don't think it will come to that," she tells you. You realise she means her mother, or Finn, or perhaps both. Two people she loved, who she stood by, but who betrayed her.

Beautiful, beaten Raven.

You're certain, then, that all the time she's with you, you won't touch anything again. You can't hurt her like that.

If she wasn't, though… you're not sure, then. You're not sure.


	5. The Shift

It's Christmas Eve. This year, Raven hasn't managed to get the Christmas shift at work - some new and keen lab tech with a sick nephew wants the money, and she couldn't bear to say no. You inquired cautiously about what she was planning to do instead, and she admitted that she'd just have a quiet day in. Like her birthday, she doesn't celebrate Christmas.

You decide to make both special this year, somehow.

It had taken some gentle persuasion, but Raven is due any moment, and she is staying until Boxing Day.

You've cleared some boxes from the spare room into your study and put sheets on the spare bed for the first time since Clarke left, and you've got all the necessaries for a basic Christmas dinner, and you've even gone to the effort of putting up a tree.

You aren't certain it is the best idea, because your plan to explain your addiction hasn't changed the undercurrent between you, and there are still moments of awkwardness. You hate it.

But she's agreed to come, and you're waiting with bated breath because no matter what, she's the most important person in your life now.

* * *

She'd asked, gently, if Clarke would be home for Christmas. You'd shaken your head, smiling wistfully, and told her what your ex-colleagues had told you; she was going strong with the same boy she'd been with for nearly two years, and they were certain he would propose soon. She was doing well at work, and she was well-liked, for the most part, by the patients and the staff.

She'd returned your Christmas card again.

Raven had hooked her fingers around your wrist in the cafe, and said, "Of course I'll come. As long as you're sure."

And you'd laughed and nodded, and dashed away a damned tear, and she'd smiled and asked what she should bring.

* * *

You hear her arrive before you see her, the familiar sound of her motorbike purring onto your drive swinging you into action. You're pulling the door open before she's twisted the engine off, and you're halfway down your driveway before she's propped the stand on, and you're pulling her into an awkward side-on hug before she's dismounted.

She laughs, and the sound warms you at least as much again as seeing her with her hair loose and her leathers on does. The crunch of snow beneath your feet seems a million miles from the heat in your cheeks and chest.

"Abby, we have three days. Can't I at least get off the bike and into the warmth before you get too handsy?"

The implication makes you blush, ears burning to the tips, even though you know the teasing tone is a simple joke. You step back and wordlessly hold out your hands, and Raven shucks off her rucksack and passes it to you, then swings herself over to sit sideways on the bike to reattach her brace. You wait while she empties the bike of its load, your arms getting steadily fuller, and then follow her to your front door when she's done.

She lets herself in, walking in her boots across the carpet to sit on the stairs with not even a flinch, and her comfortable presence in your home warms you even more.

You deposit the bags and boxes on your kitchen side and wait for her to finish divesting herself of her protective gear, as ever piling it neatly in the porch. She ducks in, feels a couple of the bags, and ducks back out with one; you watch her pop it on top of her boots and leathers.

"They're yours," she explains, "in case we fancy a Christmas ride."

You laugh and shake your head. "How do you even have leathers my size anyway?" You ask, and she colours, dark cheeks darkening further. She shrugs.

"Guessed, and picked some up," she admits.

You raise an eyebrow. "They were specifically for me?" You ask, incredulous, and she smiles, biting her lip and nodding.

You pull her into another hug and she laughs, holding tightly.

* * *

It doesn't take long to pack the food she brought for breakfast and pudding away in the fridge and the cupboards, and the gift she'd brought under the tree. Raven stands by the tree for a while, looking at each of the baubles and decorations in turn, so you explain some of the stories behind a few of them. You decide that one day, you'll decorate a Christmas tree with her, because if the look on her face is any indication, it's a long time since she did that.

You eventually pull her down onto the sofa beside you and watch three traditional Christmas films back-to-back. At some point during the first, she shifts under your fluffy winter blanket so her feet are curled beside her and she's leaning into your shoulder.

By the start of the second, your arm is beginning to go numb. You pull your feet up too, and lean against the arm of the sofa, tipping her further over onto you. She smiles hesitantly and you smile encouragingly back, reassuring her that you're not uncomfortable.

She is the next to move, and she swaps ends of the sofa, tucking her feet the other way, unintentionally pulling half the blanket with her. "Hey," you complain jokingly, and she chuckles, and then hesitantly holds it up invitingly.

You look at her hip, the bad one, which is what you'll end up partially leaning on.

"It's fine," she assures you, and you swap sides too, curling into the warmth of her and the blanket she settles back over you. Her arm stays around your back and you feel so loved that it shakes you.

You stay that way, the two of you, for the next film and a half. At some point, she starts stroking absent-minded patterns into your arm, and it raises the hair there, your stomach flipping.

* * *

"Abby."

The gentle whisper wakes you, and it's dark outside. You're still curled into Raven's side, her arm over your shoulders.

"Sorry," you murmur, pushing yourself partially upright. "Time is it?"

"Not late, only seven," she tells you. "I would have let you sleep, but I need the loo."

You smile. "Sorry," you tell her again, and she just shakes her head, smiling back. "Cheese on toast and tomato soup?" You offer, and she grins as she finishes fixing the brace back in place and stands.

"Perfect," she agrees, and heads off towards the bathroom.

You're stirring the soup on the hob when she gets back and she checks the toast in the grill wordlessly. It's domestic, and it makes your heart double-tap.

In the end, she ends up serving the soup while you get the toast out, and you move around each other seamlessly in the kitchen, until your meals are sitting steaming on the table. Raven shyly produces a bottle of white wine and you shrug and smile in agreement; neither of you drink often, but it's Christmas.

You get the glasses and she pops the cork and pours and pulls out your chair, and the whole thing - even if it's just toast and soup - feels wonderful.

You stay up too late and stumble to bed in the early hours, smiles directed at one another as you each linger on the landing. Finally, she steps in to hug you, saying "Merry Christmas, Abby," and you hold her close, her loose hair tickling your face.

The rest of Christmas Day is just as relaxed. You both wake mid-morning, eat too much food, watch ridiculous TV, and shyly exchange gifts; she's blown away by the framed sketches you give her, one being the now-completed raven she'd first seen. Your new bracelet - a simple silver chain held together with a feather which slips through a circle inlaid with a stone, not unlike her necklace - is as delicate as your wrist is dainty, and you can't stop looking at it. You choose to forgo the motorcycle ride, but wrap up warm and walk together through frosty fields and over icy roads in a mile-long circuit of the area; when you get home, you drink too much wine and eat more food and curl up under the same blanket to shake away the cold.

* * *

On Boxing Day morning, you wake to the sound of pained groaning from her room, and it brings a cold sweat onto the back of your neck. You jump out of bed, shivering in the cool early morning air, and throw on a robe, hurrying to her door.

"Raven?" You hesitate, but push it open. Raven is still in bed, still asleep, face contorting into a scowl and another mumble ripping from her lips. The duvet is twisted around her good leg, and her bad one looks small without its brace, smooth skin disrupted with gooseflesh; her face is pale, but sweat stands on her brow.

"Raven, honey, it's Abby," you tell her, sitting on the edge of her bed and reaching for her cheek, the other hand folding into hers on her chest.

She comes to slowly, eyes opening but not initially seeing.

"Sorry," she murmurs first as she begins to piece together where she is.

You smile, shaking your head. "Don't be," you tell her, pushing damp hair away from her face and tucking it behind her ear. "Are you all right?"

She nods, exhaling in a huff and pushing herself half-way upright, grimacing. You smile, and let your hand drop from her face.

"I'm going to put breakfast on," you tell her. "Fifteen minutes."

She smiles at you, and you hope that the space you're trying to give her is appreciated.

Thirteen minutes later, she appears in the kitchen doorway, dressed but with wet hair hanging down her back, and something in your chest fizzles. You smile and tip the blueberry pancakes you've made onto a plate, handing them over; she sniffs appreciatively.

She doesn't speak at all until she's cleared two servings and a coffee. Then she leans back, studies you, and swallows.

You feel suddenly self-conscious in your nightwear, hair tumbling untamed down your back. You tug your robe more tightly closed.

"Thank you," she says eventually. "That was incredible." She looks up, meets your eye. "Sorry it's so early."

"Don't be," you tell her again, and she just looks at you, something akin to amazement in her eyes. The slice of sky through the window beyond her is lightening. You hesitate, bite your lip. "Want to talk about it?"

She shrugs, and you think that maybe means more of a 'yes' than a 'no'.

You refill her coffee, watch her wrap her hands around it, and sit, quietly, patiently.

"It was… it was just mum," she tells you. "She was… she had… _someone _over, and it was…always loud. And I was too young to really understand what they were doing, but now I do, and it… sticks. I guess."

You frown for a moment, reading between the lines, and she sees the moment you understand. She shrugs awkwardly. "I think when I'm talking in my sleep, I'm usually trying to convince myself to get out, but obviously when I was a kid, I never did."

You reach for her hands, and she surrenders the coffee mug to cling onto you like nothing else is keeping her afloat. You squeeze back grimly.

"She…for drugs?" You finally ask, quietly, sensitively. Raven nods, without looking at you.

"Your dad?" You push, and she shrugs.

"Probably," she spits, and you jump a little at the venom in her tone. "Sorry," she adds, and her thumbs begin to rub back and forth over the backs of your hands.

You just squeeze back, gently, and then - on impulse - lift a hand to her cheek and kiss her forehead.

She blinks at you, surprised, and you tell her, "I'm proud of you."

Then you head hurriedly upstairs to get showered, the smooth skin of her head ghostly against your tingling lips.

* * *

After Raven leaves, with hugs and thanks and your sketches carefully attached to her rucksack, your house feels empty, like it's somehow expanded and now you rattle around in it alone. She filled it with life.

Luckily, she sends you a message between Christmas and New Year, suggesting dinner and a night out on New Year's Eve. You're surprisingly elated at the thought, and you reply, _Sounds good, but it__'s a few years since I set foot in a club!_

She sends back three laughing faces, and you're not sure whether to chuckle or be worried. You shrug it off, and set about choosing something appropriate to wear.

It takes you the remaining three days.

You don't even consider the fact that she's fetching you and that a dress might therefore not be a sensible choice; so when you self-consciously pull open the door to her knocking, you're wearing a snug green dress that ends at mid-thigh and sparkles in the light, and you're surprised and relieved to see a pick-up on your drive.

"You have a car?" You ask her blankly.

She laughs and steps inside, slinging an arm over your shoulders. "Yeah, Abby, I have car. It's a two-seater, so I drive, you cook, sound like a plan?"

You roll your eyes good-naturedly and swing the door closed behind you. She loosens her arm from around your neck and holds you at arm's length by your shoulders, taking in your dress and whistling.

"Niiiiice," she tells you, eyes raking over your choice of outfit.

You can feel the blush across your face and hurry to hide it, twisting out of her grip and plucking two pairs of shoes from their place at the bottom of the stairs.

"Help?" You ask, brandishing them at her.

She picks the silver ones, and you leave the black ones on the floor.

Only once you've stepped up into your heels do you really take in her look.

She's wearing the barest hint of makeup, and a jumpsuit that makes her legs look impossibly longer - brace hidden beneath the billowing fabric; her stomach impossibly flatter, her shoulders impossibly stronger. The necklace you bought her rests in the V of the top. You swallow, eyes returning to hers, and she smiles impishly at you.

"Raven, you- you look stunning," you tell her.

Her smile softens into one of gratitude.

"As do you," she points out, and you frown, but before you can argue, she takes your hand and tugs. "Now come on, come on, we have a whole new year to look forward to."

And she pulls you unceremoniously through your own front door and deposits you in the passenger seat of the pickup truck she apparently owns.

You blink and laugh at the perfect and ridiculous turns your life has taken since meeting her.

* * *

You wake slowly in the morning, and a slideshow of images passes behind your eyes before you open them.

_Spanish tapas. Raven, smiling widely at you across the small table. Candlelight flickering off her smooth skin, making your matching glasses of red wine look a deeper, richer colour. The bill never coming, Raven__'s admission that she left her card details when she made the reservation. Flashes of live music from the pub she took you to next; her arm linked with yours during the walk; the clear sky and the constellations she pointed out to you as you moved to the piano bar you'd found her in after your argument. Laughter, and toasts, and dancing and singing - and you were right, she was a damn good singer. When she stands to dance, hips swaying, you can't take your eyes off her._

You open your eyes carefully, slowly, expecting the light to hurt. It isn't as bad as you expect.

You're not at home, though; you don't recognise the small room, or the double bed with plain cream sheets that just fits inside.

_A taxi; Raven__'s address. She hasn't let you pay for a thing all night._

Ah. You glance down, noting the faded university top and sports shorts she must have loaned you. You don't remember getting here.

The top reminds you of how you met, of how young she is, and you're suddenly acutely aware of what the two of you must have looked like together last night; beautiful, vibrant young Raven - with you, wearing clothes a decade or more too young for you.

You swallow, and realise you feel faintly sick.

You've had bad hangovers, but not for some time. You hope this one isn't terrible.

How embarrassing.

* * *

It's midday before Raven ventures to your door, looking quite ill herself. She knocks quietly, lets herself in, and sits wordlessly on your mattress, holding water, aspirin and a round of dry toast. You smile, trying not to let your earlier thoughts show on your face.

"Feeling worse for wear?" You ask her quietly. You've been up to the toilet twice and discovered that the nausea must have been from your own self-reflection, for you feel quite well now.

She shrugs, nods, cracks a smile. You chuckle, and take the water and toast. She frowns from you to the aspirin and sighs self-deprecatingly.

"Never drank much to build up the tolerance," she mumbles. "Regretting that a tad."

You chuckle again and hold out the remaining half of toast. She flinches, but picks it up gingerly. You can feel your eyes creasing with mirth and she shoves you half-heartedly in the shoulder.

* * *

After your night out, it's nearly a fortnight before you manage to catch up again, and you miss her. You see Jackson, for the first time in a long time, and while you so enjoy that - and the news that he and Miller, his boyfriend, are now engaged - he isn't Raven.

You've exchanged the odd few messages, but nothing of any substance. You have no idea whether she's busy, or bored of you, or just can't think up a reason to meet. Your poisonous thoughts from New Year's Day continue to rattle around in your mind.

Eventually, you give up and ask her if she's free.

_Tonight? Sure. What did you have in mind?_

It's a little flatter - fewer emojis, more direct - than her usual messages. You try not to read too much into it.

You consider her question for a while.

_Bring the pickup, you drive, I cook?_ You send eventually.

_Mysterious. I like it,_ she replies.

* * *

So you find yourself once again in the truck's passenger seat, your hair catching in the fresh breeze whipping through the open window, your hand drawing patterns in the cool evening air.

Raven is quiet beside you, and has been since she picked you up. You're waiting for the appropriate moment to find out what's bothering her.

In the bed of the pickup you've thrown a thin travel mattress, complete with duvet and a few blankets; there's a camping stove, and some packets of food, and some plates and knives and forks. There's a radio, and a notebook and pen, and a book, and a torch.

You direct her south-west, higher and higher, chasing the last glimpse of the sun, until you reach the top of the tallest local mountain. It's not even a mountain, really - more of a hill; but it will do.

Raven pulls into the viewpoint, kills the engine. The sounds of the night invade, and you smile across at her. She smiles weakly back.

You've set up the bed of the pick up and most of the stove by the time she gets out of the car and comes to join you. You hand her a jumper wordlessly, and she shrugs it on and reaches for the boil-in-the-bag food you've brought.

It isn't until the food has warmed and you're each scooping it out with your forks that she finally speaks.

"It's beautiful out here."

You nod thoughtfully. "It is," you agree. "And it's a welcome break from the city too."

She glances over at you and nods shortly.

You finish eating and produce all the necessaries for s'mores. Her face lights up, and it warms you more than the stove ever could.

Half-way through her third sticky treat - melted marshmallow strings coating her lips in a mockery of lipstick, turning your stomach over - she holds your gaze for the first time.

She rubs at her lips. "Sorry," she mumbles.

"What for?" You ask, smiling gently.

She shrugs, shoving the last of her s'more into her mouth. Then she stands, brushes herself down, and holds out her hand to you. You take it and stand.

Raven tugs you to the back of the pick-up and gestures you in first. You hesitate, and then realise she's compensating for her leg, and climb in. She clambers up after you, somewhat awkwardly, and throws herself onto the right-hand side of the mattress.

You settle more gracefully beside her and blink up at the inky sky. The stars are clear, and you try to remember any of the constellations she taught you at New Year.

"Cassiopeia?" You try, pointing. She glances at you and then follows the line of your arm and finger.

"Yeah, actually," she replies, smiling thinly. "Nice one."

You turn onto your side to look at her. "It's the only one I remember," you admit quietly.

She chuckles, and swipes at her eye.

You reach for her hand.

"Raven, what's wrong?" You ask her gently.

There's a long silence between you, and you listen instead to the breeze ruffling the leaves, scanning Raven's pensive expression as she chews her lip, focusing on something unseen.

Finally, she breathes out in a steady stream.

"I… have to move," she says finally.

You frown.

"Want me to shuffle over a bit?"

"No, as in- I'm losing my house. My landlord's selling."

"Oh," you breathe. "I- I'm sorry. Do you need help looking for somewhere else?"

Raven's face pinches.

"I don't think I can afford anywhere else liveable. Everywhere else in the same price bracket is a flat. I might have to head out of town."

You begin to form the question of why a flat would be a problem, but she shifts beside you just in time for you to feel her brace bump against your leg, and you swallow it hurriedly. The steep, concrete stairs in flats aren't quite like the ones in houses, after all. But out of town…

There's a silence between them as you consider her words, turn them over in your mind.

_She must be getting a good deal on her house._

You bite your lip.

"Raven… you could move in with me."

She glances over at you, raises an eyebrow.

"I'm not a charity case, Abby."

You frown. "I know that. I _know_ that. Raven, is everything else okay? Is anything the matter? I feel like… I feel like you've been off with me since I sent you home from work."

She rolls her eyes back to the sky and sighs audibly, and you regret bringing it up.

"I'm sorry, I just don't- if I've done anything wrong- you're my _family_, Raven." You try to articulate your swirling emotions, and you're not sure you're successful. "I can't decide if it's more than just work, or if I'm imagining it, or- or if you're just bored of me -"

"Abby, no." She cuts you off decisively, and you blink, letting the hand that had been gently gesticulating along with your words fall back onto the mattress between you. "It's nothing like that, at all. I could never get bored of spending time with you."

You blink again. "Then what?"

She shrugs, looking back towards the sky.

"That's not an answer," you chide.

Silence falls again, and you track the lights of four planes overhead while you wait for her to say something.

She doesn't.

Eventually, you shrug. "Well, you'd be welcome at mine any time. I know it's not the same as having your own place, but there's room for two."

Raven huffs out a chuckle and shakes her head.

"I can't live in your spare room, Abby."

You frown. "Is it that bad?"

Raven rolls suddenly onto her side, facing you, only a few inches between you now.

"No," she whispers. "But it's a really bad idea."

You stare into her dark eyes, feeling your brow crinkle in confusion.

She rakes her gaze over your face, and you feel your cheeks darkening under the intensity of her gaze. She trembles, and then lays a hand on your cheek, and leans her forehead to yours. You smile uncertainly at her, reaching up to cover her hand with your own.

"Abby," she breathes.

And then she dips her chin and kisses you.

You tense, initially, like a flighty bird - but her lips are soft and pliant and gentle. You relax and move your hand over to her cheek, tucking soft hair behind her ear, stroking patterns over her face with your fingertips.

Butterflies explode in your stomach, and a soft sigh escapes the back of your throat. Raven's hand on your cheek is tugging you closer, and she nips your bottom lip.

You break away with a gasp. "Raven, I-"

She puts a finger over your lips and shakes her head. Hers are swollen, pinker than usual, and her chest heaves. Your stomach turns over and you recognise, dimly, for the first time, how often that happens with her.

"I don't want to hear it," she murmurs. "I don't want all the reasons this can't be."

You swallow, and stroke her hair back again. Heat is pooling low in your belly. "Neither do I," you admit. "This is… I never expected… this is why you pulled away?"

Raven sighs, closes her eyes.

"I really tried, Abby. I really tried."

You blink, shake your head. "I don't understand," you admit.

And Raven just smiles, and leans forward to kiss you again. "We'll talk, once you've recovered from the surprise. Until then, I'm going to keep doing this, before you stop letting me."

She kisses you again, and again, and you feel weightless.


	6. The Move

You know it's time you both went home, but you also don't want to break whatever spell is currently holding you on your right-hand side, left hand resting on Raven's ribs, her right hand tangled in your hair.

Her dark eyes are searching your face, flickering across it, and you can't help but smile at her.

She's bathed in moonlight, and she's breathtaking.

Finally, she rolls onto her back, and her left hand finds your right and tangles your fingers together loosely. She casts her gaze to the stars, and begins to point out constellations, telling you their names, their shapes, their stories.

You can't tear your eyes from her face.

Eventually, she sighs, rolling her head over to meet your eyes. "_Abby_, you're supposed to look up. The view is so beautiful."

"I like it just fine from here," you tell her, and she colours immediately.

This time, you lean in first, free hand tipping her chin up, and she breathes out shakily, pulling you hungrily closer, teeth grazing your bottom lip.

"Okay," she murmurs, barely backing up. You can still feel her lips brushing yours. "Okay, we need to go home now. You need to think about this and if we stay here, I'm not going to be able to… to not…"

You blink, and blush.

Raven's implying something you hadn't even considered.

"Oh," you breathe.

She laughs softly, runs a thumb across your cheekbone.

"Can't blame me," she whispers. "You're incredibly attractive."

You swallow, and your stomach turns over. You shake your head, slowly. "No, Raven, I'm getting old."

She shakes her head, eyes burning into yours. "Not now," she tells you, so quietly you strain forwards to hear her. "We're not having this conversation now. Look at this, look around you. This is so perfect, isn't it?"

And so you settle back onto the mattress beside her and stare up at the stars, and will your whirring mind into silence, and simply exist.

* * *

When Raven drops you home, she pulls you into a firm hug, and tells you to let her know as soon as you're ready to talk. She hesitates before she drops a kiss to your cheek.

You watch her tail lights all the way out of sight, and stumble indoors, tingling from head to toe.

_What on earth just happened?_

* * *

You don't sleep. You sit, feet curled beneath you, on your sofa, picking at a loose thread on the blanket you shared at Christmas.

_Raven kissed me._

_And I think I wanted her to._

You nervously twist her bracelet around your wrist, feeling the thin chain bite a little.

It's honestly not something you'd considered. But Raven has been so important to you, and became that way so quickly, that you're not sure _why _you hadn't.

_Because she__'s a woman._

You chuckle and wipe a hand down your face from forehead to chin. That was true; the reason you hadn't considered it was purely and simply because you hadn't considered being attracted to a woman. You'd never needed to before.

_And yet__… when she kissed me earlier… I didn't even think about it. I was more concerned about her age._

Oh. Yeah. There's that, too. She was your student not so long ago.

You run a hand distractedly through your hair and sigh.

It's not like you didn't enjoy it, though. In fact, you haven't felt so alive since before Jake died. You fiddle with the ring around your neck, and bite your lip, hard.

Thinking in circles is useless. It's already getting light. You pull out your phone to text Raven before you change your mind.

_I don__'t think I can figure this out without your help,_ you write.

She can't have slept either, for she replies almost immediately.

_Come on over._

* * *

You have to wipe suddenly-sweaty hands on your cargo pants when you get to Raven's door. They're shaking, and you can't pinpoint why you're so nervous.

"Hey," she says shyly when the door opens. She steps back to let you in, and you smile, hoping it's reassuring.

As soon as you're inside, she hurries off to make coffee, and you perch on her sofa, glancing around at the stacks of half-packed cardboard boxes.

"Sorry about the mess," she apologises, appearing in the doorway. She grimaces, deposits the drinks on the table, and slides a stack of paperwork off into the open box stood below.

You shake your head. "Moving is messy," you point out, and she nods.

"It is."

She settles on the sofa beside you, good leg curled up underneath her, elbow on the back of the sofa. You glance at her, feel a blush starting across your cheekbones, and study your left knee instead, fingernail tracing a seam there.

She reaches hesitatingly for your hand and stalls it.

"Abby," she whispers.

You swallow.

"Raven, I don't… I don't understand." You look up, catch her gaze, and hold it. "You… _kissed_ me."

She lets out a breath and laughs hollowly. "Yeah. Thought it was fairly self-explanatory," she says with a shrug.

You furrow your brow. "I- what do you want from me?"

Raven stares at you. "Nothing," she replies. "I don't want anything, Abby. I wouldn't even have told you if you hadn't been talking about me moving in, because I don't want to lose you, and this… felt like a surefire way."

You frown. "Why?"

She rolls her eyes. "Because I was your student, because I'm female, because I can't walk, because we're just friends. Any number of reasons."

You're shaking your head. "I told you, Raven, you're my family. And I don't care that you're female. And I'm not even responding to the comment about your leg, that's not a discussion."

She's holding her bottom lip between her teeth, and your eyes are unwittingly drawn to it.

"So the biggest problem here is that I was your student," she murmurs. You don't respond, casting your gaze down to your joined hands. "And the fact that you don't feel the same," she adds.

You look up at her then. "The same as what?" You ask softly. "I'm so lost, Raven. I'm so lost."

And she just looks back at you, slightly crestfallen, all compassion and softness shining from her eyes.

"Abby," she whispers tenderly. Leans her forehead on yours again, just like earlier.

You close your eyes, and feel a tear fall from one.

"You're so much more than family to me," she murmurs. "I don't want to move into your spare room, Abby, I want to move into yours. I want to share everything with you, I want to fall asleep with you and wake up with you, I want to take road trips and have Christmases with you. I want to build a life with you."

You can feel that your mouth has opened slightly, but you haven't got a response to give her.

Her hands squeeze yours.

"Say something," she begs.

And you open your eyes, close your mouth, and just look at her for a minute, letting the images she conjured flash through your mind.

"Why?" You ask eventually.

She laughs, wipes tears from her face. "There was always a connection between us, Abby. It's why I listened in to your conversation with Jackson the first day, it's why I wrote that essay. It's why you answered all the questions I asked, and stopped using, and came to my graduation. We've built up this friendship from that connection that neither of us could explain. I've told you things no-one else knows, and you've confided in me just as much. We wear jewellery the other bought us, we spend our birthdays with one another. We both have friends, but our relationship is so different to how those friendships are."

You agree wholeheartedly with everything she's saying. You're just not sure it's enough.

"Raven… lots of friendships start with something… inexplicable. Just because we're closer to one another than any of our other friends doesn't mean we aren't just… friends."

She shakes her head, chuckling.

"No, Abby. Maybe that's what this is for you, but… friends don't look at each other the way I looked at you when I picked you up for your birthday meal, or on New Year's Eve. The way I thought you looked at me the day of the grant application presentation. Friends don't curl up together the way we did to watch those Christmas films, and friends don't take each other to the top of a hill to stargaze in the bed of a pickup. I don't look at my other friends' lips and wonder what it would be like to kiss them, or at the hem of their dress and wonder how soft their thighs are, how it would feel to stand between them."

You colour at her words; you can feel your ears burning.

"Maybe I'm wrong about you, Abby, about how you feel, but I know what I'm thinking. And it's not friendly."

You swallow, hard, and rub at your forehead.

"I'm… I'm old enough to be your mother. People are confused by our friendship, let alone… more. Raven, you're young and vibrant and I'm on my second career, with more wrinkles every day, more baggage than you need. You deserve so much more."

"But I want _you_, Abby. I'm not talking about the rest of it. It can wait. It's not an issue. I think I can compete with your baggage anyway."

You smile tiredly, inclining your head, conceding that point.

"You saved me, Raven," you remind her. "You saved my life."

She shakes her head. "You did that," she tells you softly. "Now I need to know if there's a place for me in it."

You blink, and reach for her. "Of course there is," you start, but she's shaking her head.

"It's too late," she sighs. "Now that you know… I can't hide this. I can't be in your house, in your space, and pretend this doesn't exist. I was obviously wrong about how you were looking at me, but I can't hide this, Abby… so if you want to go back to how we were, you need to be prepared for me to slip up sometimes."

The panic that momentarily gripped you abates when you realise that she isn't threatening to vanish on you. She isn't giving you an ultimatum, and she isn't going to disappear.

You open your mouth to tell her that you will manage with that - but the words won't come.

_You let your eyes stray to the essay, to the homemade brace, and somewhere in your mind, you let yourself accept that she intrigues you, this girl._

_You__'re torn between guilt that Clarke wasn't the reason you got clean, and fascination with the idea that Raven was._

_Raven stops at the gate, looks at you, and you feel like maybe she__'s looking through you. It makes colour rise to your cheeks. You avoid her gaze and scuff your foot across the concrete like a shy schoolgirl._

_You smile at her, and you wonder how you can be so sure that you absolutely mean it when you reply, __"Any time. Anything."_

"_Which day?" She asks brightly, switching her weight to her other leg. "Any of them," you murmur with a shrug, eyes on her face. "All of them."_

"_What's wrong?" She asks, reaching for your arm, and the touch of her rough fingers on the inside of your wrist is electric, her thumb on the bone branding._

"_I know it wasn't an addiction, but it's easy to swap one thing for the other," she tells you earnestly, as if you don't know. "It's so good that you haven't." "But I think I have," you murmur, too quietly for her to hear, watching her dig enthusiastically into her jacket potato._

_That little stone is like a star, and sometimes - when you__'re at home, flopped on the sofa staring at your plain ceiling - you wonder if perhaps that's where she came from. The stars. _

_It__'s almost six in the evening before your phone chimes again, and your stomach swoops as you open it to see the necklace you chose resting on olive skin, dark eyes creased in a smile. _

_In March, she takes you by surprise when she turns up for lunch in a beautiful greenish suit dress. She__'s wearing deep red lipstick and dark eye make up and she didn't even make this much effort for her own graduation. Your mouth doesn't seem to want to close, because you're realising just how muscular her arms are and how flat her stomach is and how strong she looks. You've never been less aware of the brace on her leg than in this moment. And she still has your necklace on._

_And you nod, you promise her that you__'ll try, and she turns her face into your hand and kisses your palm. Your stomach swoops and your eyes fill with tears and you swallow, hard._

_It__'s the first time you're not sat on separate chairs and you feel hyper-aware of how close she is._

_Raven laughs, shakes her head. __"You might have done it for me, but I didn't help you, you did it yourself. I'm not tied to your recovery. I actually like you." You blush to the tips of your ears and she grins, tugging your own smile out of you even as you think, _you are tied to it. You're my new addiction._ She kisses your cheek and it startles you. You__'re not in time to catch her before she leaves._

_Her reply takes half an hour, and you__'re sure by then that she has plans. _Only if you're not busy,_ the message says instead, and you smile probably too widely and refuse to consider what that means._

_You both eat Italian food and drink non-alcoholic drinks and talk, and you pay the bill, and she smiles at you so sweetly that you__'re certain you'll melt into the leather-backed seats. _

_She pulls her other hand free to absent-mindedly play with her necklace. It makes your stomach turn over._

_Seeing her hair flowing freely down her back, unbound, for only the third time that you recall, might have something to do with your eventual agreement. _

_She__'s been round so often now that she steps naturally into the kitchen to make you both a drink, glancing through to the living room as she turns to fill the kettle. You're sure you're failing as a host when you don't stop her, but something about her feeling so at home in your space intoxicates you._

_Then she leans in and murmurs, __"For the record, you look great in leathers too," and you blush to the tips of your ears and hide your grin by pulling the helmet down hurriedly over your face._

_You swallow as her long-sleeved shirt shifts over her abdominal muscles, and step into her personal space._

_She__'s slightly behind you, in the end, and - as keeps surprising you - taller; you have to turn to face her, and the table digs into your back because she's so close. Your stomach turns over again; your ears burn, and you swallow wordlessly and gather your confidence, glancing down at the brace and the hip you'd just manipulated. "Apparently," you hedge, smirking back. It feels flirtatious; it feels loaded. She smiles softly, and your eyes connect for a heavy moment. You're not sure what it means._

_The soft music, the singing, it suddenly pours into your mind, fills you with emotion. All the things you feel for the girl sat before you._

"_Abby…" she's quiet. She sounds desperate, broken. "Have you ever loved someone so much that no matter what they do to you, or themselves, you take it?"_

_You__'re pulling the door open before she's twisted the engine off, and you're halfway down your driveway before she's propped the stand on, and you're pulling her into an awkward side-on hug before she's dismounted. She laughs, and the sound warms you at least as much again as seeing her with her hair loose and her leathers on does. The crunch of snow beneath your feet seems a million miles from the heat in your cheeks and chest. "Abby, we have three days. Can't I at least get off the bike and into the warmth before you get too handsy?" The implication makes you blush, ears burning to the tips._

_At some point, she starts stroking absent-minded patterns into your arm, and it raises the hair there, your stomach flipping._

_You__'re stirring the soup on the hob when she gets back and she checks the toast in the grill wordlessly. It's domestic, and it makes your heart double-tap._

_Then you head hurriedly upstairs to get showered, the smooth skin of her head ghostly against your tingling lips._

_She__'s wearing the barest hint of makeup, and a jumpsuit that makes her legs look impossibly longer - brace hidden beneath the billowing fabric; her stomach impossibly flatter, her shoulders impossibly stronger. The necklace you bought her rests in the V of the top. You swallow, eyes returning to hers, and she smiles impishly at you. "Raven, you- you look stunning," you tell her._

_When she stands to dance, hips swaying, you can__'t take your eyes off her._

_You finish eating and produce all the necessaries for s__'mores. Her face lights up, and it warms you more than the stove ever could. Half-way through her third sticky treat - melted marshmallow strings coating her lips in a mockery of lipstick, turning your stomach over - she holds your gaze for the first time._

_You tense, initially, like a flighty bird - but her lips are soft and pliant and gentle. You relax and move your hand over to her cheek, tucking soft hair behind her ear, stroking patterns over her face with your fingertips. Butterflies explode in your stomach, and a soft sigh escapes the back of your throat. Raven__'s hand on your cheek is tugging you closer, and she nips your bottom lip._

_She puts a finger over your lips and shakes her head. Hers are swollen, pinker than usual, and her chest heaves. Your stomach turns over and you recognise, dimly, for the first time, how often that happens with her. __"I don't want to hear it," she murmurs. "I don't want all the reasons this can't be." You swallow, and stroke her hair back again. Heat is pooling low in your belly._

"Oh," you murmur. "_Oh. _Raven._"_

And this time, it's you leaning in, pressing a gentle, almost chaste kiss to her lips, and she's pulling back, frowning.

And you laugh, shake your head. "I just re-evaluated our entire relationship with a whole new perspective and I'm seeing things that were absolutely already there but I'm so _blind,_ Raven. I'm so blind."

She smiles at you, and you can see the love shining from her eyes. It takes your breath away.

* * *

Raven asks you to go home, to think about it for at least a few days, and to let her know. She doesn't want you to do this because you're afraid of losing her, or because her landlord is selling her house. She wants you to be sure.

You're already sure, though. You're already craving the touch of her lips again.

You have a new addiction.

Instead, you spend the few days she's given you getting your house ready for another inhabitant. You take down your photographs from the spare room, refusing to consider the possibility that she might simply share yours; you take your overspilled clothes out of the spare wardrobe. You shuffle your toiletries around in the bathroom so there is space for another set. You buy a second flat-pack desk and another office chair for the study, and somehow crowbar it in.

While you work, you ponder over this shift in your dynamic with Raven, and wonder how you failed to notice it happening.

You knew she was something other than straight; she told you that herself, albeit by accident. You'd certainly appreciated her body from time to time. Emotionally, the connection between you was always incredibly strong. Her intelligence had been obvious from the start. You remember noting moments that it almost seemed she was flirting with you.

And yet, you failed to even consider that it all meant more - or even, meant _something_.

_We__'ve wasted so much time,_ you think as you pull the study door closed behind you.

But then you realise that what you've actually done is build a strong, sturdy foundation for whatever your relationship morphs into next.

You might have been too blind and blinkered to recognise what you were subconsciously thinking, what Raven was consciously thinking, but it gave you time; you've opened up to one another; you've had fun, and given gifts, and fallen out in that time.

Perhaps you needed it.

* * *

It's four days before you text Raven.

_I have no idea why you want me, but I think I__'m the luckiest person alive. _

She texts back, _Don__'t fish. _

You roll your eyes, because you know that she knows very well that's not at all what you were doing.

_Your room__'s ready._

She doesn't reply to that, but only two hours later, you hear her car on your drive. When you go to open the door, you can see boxes stacked in the bed of the pick-up, all covered in tarp and secured with bungee cords.

You hurry out to help her, and she catches your hands and smiles blindingly at you. You grin helplessly back, and an unbidden thought tumbles through your mind.

_I__'ve loved her for so long._

And you have - you just hadn't realised until this moment how easy it will be to stumble from 'love' to 'in love'.

* * *

It only takes one more trip to fetch the rest of Raven's things, and you go with her; you drive the pickup back, and she rides her motorcycle. There are only a half-dozen boxes this time, and you discover that the house was furnished - the sofa, table, TV, beds, and white goods all stay.

It makes even more sense, now, that she would have struggled to find anywhere else to live. Furnished property is rare in your area.

She beats you home and waits on your doorstep. You slide out of her truck and present her with her keys - a freshly-cut house key on the keyring.

She throws her arms around you, and you laugh as she lifts you clean off your feet.

* * *

Later that evening, you're curled on the sofa, waiting for Raven to come down. She hasn't questioned her room allocation, and you're quietly relieved, because although your thoughts haven't remained completely innocent since discovering what it feels like to kiss her, you're not ready for that step yet.

Her kitchen boxes have been unpacked, and everything has been absorbed into your cupboards. Food and supplies, utensils, crockery and cutlery - everything was examined and checked against what was already present. Some items of yours or hers that were poorer quality, nearing their use-by date, or damaged now lie forlornly in a couple of boxes by the door; the other boxes are flat, leaning on the wall, awaiting their fate.

Your jumble of shoes in the porch have been neatened, and you've taken some upstairs. Some of Raven's have appeared in their place, and you each have three or four coats and scarves hung on the pegs. Two umbrellas are leaning on the wall.

There are three still-packed boxes in your study - Raven's electronics and paperwork to unpack into the brand new desk and its inbuilt file drawer some time in the next few weeks.

The bathroom has changed only subtly: an extra toothbrush, an extra hairbrush; nearly-empty shampoo and shower gel bottles added to yours on the bath edge; some lip gloss and mascara next to your make up bag; a deodorant on the windowsill; sanitary items in the cupboard; a stack of towels on the closed toilet seat which you relocate all but one of to the linen cupboard.

You can hear her, overhead, hanging clothes in the wardrobe. The metal hangers clang on the metal bar. There's a slightly irregular pattern, and it lulls you into a doze.

The house feels lived-in now.

* * *

You blink yourself back to awareness when Raven appears at the bottom of the stairs.

"Done?" you ask, smiling.

She grins, bounding over to the sofa and plopping down beside you. "Done," she confirms. "Just the study to finish some time. Thank you, Abby."

You smile, reach for her hand. She leans her head on your shoulder.

It feels like the most natural thing in the world.

* * *

Two days later is the first time you actually see her room, and you're touched to find that your sketches - her Christmas gift - adorn the walls. You swallow a lump in your throat.

You can hear the kettle boiling in the kitchen and hurry downstairs, finding Raven leaning on the counter, waiting to pour from it.

You walk right up to her, bold, no hesitation, and kiss her soundly for the first time since she moved in, one hand on her hip and one on her cheek. She lets out a huff of surprise and tugs you closer, running her hands down your sides.

The kiss is messy, and her teeth graze your lip before her tongue, and both make your knees go weak. Your hips are pressing hers into your kitchen worktop and one of your hands is tangled in her hair.

She breaks the kiss, gasping, and you trail your hand from her head down her neck and chest to her waist.

You notice that her eyes - always dark - are impossibly darker, molten.

"What was that for?" She wonders aloud, and you smile, kissing her more gently, soothing.

"I put some clean washing on your bed and saw your walls," you admit.

She raises an eyebrow. "Your drawings deserve to be displayed," she tells you seriously, earnestly, and you're overwhelmed with affection for her.

_I love you._ The words are there, on the tip of your tongue, but you push them away. It's too soon, and you're too old for the black-winged angel currently pressed against the front of your body.

You'll wait until - if - she says it. You'll hold your secret close, because you won't have her trapped with you unless she wants to be.

Her move.


	7. The Epilogue

It takes you almost three weeks to spend the night together after she moves in. Three weeks of increasingly hesitant 'goodnights' on your landing, longer and fonder. Three weeks of getting used to living in the same space, cuddling on the sofa, and kisses goodbye on your ways to work. Three weeks of make out sessions that pull colour into your cheeks and make you feel like a teenager again, each harder to stop than the last.

Three weeks until the last time Raven hugs you and kisses you softly on the cheek, smiling and angling herself towards the spare room door.

You catch her hand and tug gently. She looks back at you and you can see a glimmer of hope in her gaze as you step back towards your room.

"Are you sure?" She asks softly.

You nod shyly. She follows you, mesmerised.

Not ten minutes later, you're curled against her, head on her chest, and she chuckles.

"Shame. I was just starting to get quite fond of my room," she murmurs.

You lift your head and shove her, laughing despite yourself. She smiles back, something like wonder in her eyes as she runs a hand down your cheek. She opens her mouth, closes it, and shakes her head, leaning in to kiss you.

You wake up with your head still pillowed on her chest. She's already awake, stroking your hair back and looking down at you like you hung the stars, and you blush, hoping more than anything that you haven't drooled on her.

"Morning," you whisper.

"Hey, gorgeous," she murmurs. Your blush deepens and she laughs, kissing the top of your head. "Hate to break the moment, but I'm dying for a pee," she says brightly, and you roll your eyes and move off her.

"Selfish, really, taking my pillow to the bathroom as soon as I wake up," you pout. She grins, winks, and tells you that you could always follow it. You throw an actual pillow at her retreating back, face still burning.

* * *

It's another two weeks after that when she finds you trying to unclasp your necklace - a near impossible task after so long without touching it.

"Hey, let me help," she offers as she appears in the hallway mirror's reflection, reaching up to cover your hands with her own. Then she slows, catching your reflection's eye with a curious gaze. "I've never seen you take this off," she challenges softly.

You shrug, swallow. "Feels like time," you say roughly.

"Does it? Or do you think it being there might upset me? Because Jake is part of who you are." She pauses, eyes searching yours in the mirror. "Please don't take this off unless you genuinely feel you want to. It being there will never be a problem to me."

And you twist between her outstretched arms to crush your lips to hers, trying to convey everything you're feeling as the tight spool of dread in your stomach unwinds into nothingness.

* * *

It's only a few days afterwards that you finally give in to the feelings she elicits, rather than your nerves.

The way she gasps and moans under your hands and lips is quite the ego boost - but still, you remind her softly, breathlessly, as her hands slide under your pyjama top - you are getting old.

She usually scoffs when you say this to her. Today, she shakes her head, and presses you down into your own mattress with a hard kiss.

"I don't care how old your birth year says you are. You're beautiful. And emotional connection doesn't have anything to do with how you look."

And you realise - honestly realise, for the first time - that she means it. She really thinks you're beautiful. And just in case you can't or won't believe that, she's reminding you that your connection runs so much deeper.

It's a memorable, emotional night. You lose count of how many times you come undone under her talented fingers and quicksilver tongue, and you're proud to find that - with some guidance - you have the same effect on her.

Lying in her arms afterwards, floating in some blissful state between waking and sleeping, you hear Raven speaking and focus on her words with supreme effort.

"Hmmmm?" You interrupt her.

She snorts and starts over. "I said, wow. That was worth waiting for."

A lazy grin spreads over your face. "Yeah, it was," you tell her dreamily. "'m sorry I made you wait."

"Don't be, you needed time," she says, and you wonder if she's the most perfect person to exist. "Don't make me wait that long again though please, I might combust."

And you're not sure what part of that is so funny but it takes you a very long time to stop giggling.

* * *

The first time you arrive at work together, it's because your car wouldn't start. You're stressed about it.

"It's not going to be fixed in time for tomorrow either, or probably the rest of the week," you worry in Raven's pick-up passenger seat. "Someone is going to see us, and I'll get sacked."

Raven is calm beside you. She takes your hand and squeezes, but you wrench free of her grip.

"That's hardly going to help," you hiss.

"Abby, I'm not a student any more. It's years since I was a student. This isn't an issue." She gestures between you.

"What if someone thinks it was going on before?"

"The cafe staff and our lab colleagues can all vouch for the fact that nothing was going on before. I was with Finn for half of it."

You relax, barely. You know she's talking sense, but it worries you - even if you're aware, on some level, that your real worry is of what people will say to you about the age gap, and your genders.

Just because you don't care, doesn't mean no one else will.

But when you drive up to the security gate, nobody passes any comment at all. A man checks both your ID badges and waves a thumbs up to his colleague. The barrier opens ahead.

"Have a good day," he tells them, and you smile while Raven returns the sentiment.

"See?" She murmurs, reaching for your hand again. This time, you let her hold it. "If you're not ready to tell people, I'm okay with that. But please don't pretend it's because I was your student."

You sit, paralysed, as she reverses into a space. "Raven, you broke up with Finn... when... did you...?"

She smiles sadly. "I broke up with Finn for all the reasons I told you at the time. It was inevitable, I should have done it sooner. But yes, I was also aware of what I was beginning to feel for you."

Your eyes fill with tears. She's looking at you with that expression again, like you're the sun, and suddenly you feel ten feet tall and luckier than the rest of the planet's population squared.

"I'll always worry what people will say. But I'm yours. And I'm lucky to be, and proud to be. So I'm as ready as I'll ever be to tell people. You?"

She's crying, now. "Me too," she breathes. She leans in and kisses your cheek, long and soft. "Gotta run," she tells you.

Later that day, when Jackson checks in for his once-every-few-month moan about Marcus - who actually appears to have mellowed significantly - you tell him that you're in a relationship. He's made up for you, and asks you what his name is.

"It... it's Raven."

You think you might have mentioned her to him before. It appears you're right, because a mischievous smile lights up his face and creases his eyes. "Welcome to the dark side, then," he crows, and you laugh despite yourself. His shit-eating grin softens into a smile. "You look really well, Abby. Happy. I'm really pleased for you."

You exchange more pleasantries, and for the first time in a long time, he suggests meeting up and you agree that it's been too long. He rings off and you leave your office, elated, bouncing to the staff room.

He didn't mention her age. He's happy for you. You look well and happy. The words bounce around your mind and you realise again how poor company you were before Raven convinced you to give up the drugs.

You text her, full of optimism, and she texts back, cheerful and excited.

When you meet her by her car at the end of the day - after giving two lectures which seemed full of engaged and interactive students - you throw your arms around her. She stumbles, startled, but hugs you back tightly.

"Good day, then?" She chuckles. You kiss her soundly.

* * *

After that, you're much more confident. You go shopping together, or out for dinner, or for a walk, always with your hands intwined, and the most you suffer for weeks is some staring, or double takes.

Of course, it's not all plain sailing. Almost three months after you tell Jackson, you're out for a walk, hand in hand, when someone jeers from the other side of the road.

"Still holding hands with mummy?" The shout comes. You feel a ripple of shame and try to let go.

"Don't you dare," Raven says, tightening her grip. "Don't let that twat win."

Your eyes fill with tears. She doesn't see, too busy flipping off the person who shouted.

"Don't want to know there they've been," the unidentified person yells.

"Wrong hand," Raven mutters to you, grinning, but you feel like you're drowning and you can't smile back. She frowns. "Come on," she says, tugging you into the closest pavement cafe and sitting you at a table away from the window. You dimly hear her explaining to the owner what had happened, and then someone being denied entry, but there's a roaring in your ears and you can't concentrate on any of it. A toneless voice in your head is reminding you how much better you'd feel with some detachment - the same detachment you craved after Jake's death.

A strong coffee appears on your table and Raven wraps your hands around it. You muster the smallest of smiles.

A huge slice of cake and two forks appears next. "On the house," the cafe owner tells you both, and you thank him numbly.

After the coffee and the cake, you feel better, but guilty. You stammer half of your apology and Raven cuts you off.

"Don't apologise for some stranger being an idiot," she pleads. "We haven't done anything wrong."

You shake your head. "You shouldn't have to put up with it, you should be with someone your own age -"

"Don't," she says flatly. "People like him will always find something to say. Neither of us should have to put up with it, but humans are cruel. And I don't want someone my own age, I want _you_."

She pulls you towards her and you cling to her pathetically, thinking that this reassurance is probably what you needed from the second he shouted his first insult, full of guilt for thinking about the drugs.

* * *

You make a habit of popping into the same cafe after that, to show your gratitude to the owner for his kindness. It takes a week or so for you to have the courage to walk hand-in-hand with Raven again, but you get there.

It gets easier after a ride out on her bike. You feel the now-familiar thrill as you dress in the leathers she bought you, tucking the travel size sketch pad and pencil tin away safely. You grip tightly to her until you're able to relax, realising how many months have passed since your last ride.

You're grinning by the time you arrive at the organised meet, in a riverside town surrounded by sweeping bends and rolling hills. There are motorbikes of all kinds filling every spare parking space and lay-by, and their owners - easily identifiable by their helmets tucked under their arms, leathers rolled halfway down, are spilled over the streets, perched on benches, eating street food and mingling.

A lot of them are stereotypical bikers - big guys with piercings, tattoos, facial hair. Some - like you and Raven - are very much not. Your stomach is doing something strange, a jumpy, empty kind of dance, and you can't decide if you're nervous or hungry. You're relieved when Raven takes your hand, taking the decision away from you, and you follow her to a nearby stall.

"This," she announces, "is the best hog roast in the state."

There's a queue, and you're surprised when the group ahead of you - three typical bikers, one female, two male - turn to greet you and chat. Raven, of course, takes it all in her stride, chatting amicably about the local routes. You take a few moments to collect yourself, noting that your hand is still encased tightly in Raven's and _no one has mentioned it. _And then you smile and join in smoothly.

It takes maybe ten minutes before the group you're talking to get to the front of the queue. In that time, you learn their names - Indra, Nyko and Lincoln - and their home town, their long-standing friendship that began with martial arts, and the surprising news that Nyko is a nurse. In turn, you share your names and professions - Nyko immediately takes a shine to your medical background - and how long you've been living together.

It feels friendly. You wonder when you last socialised with anyone except Raven, and general chatting in the staff room.

The group waits for you to order your own food, and you all sit together to eat and chat some more. You realise, after mopping grease and flour from the pork and bread off your fingers, that you are beaming. Raven catches your eye and grins back.

* * *

It's individual moments, you think to yourself, that build up into big changes - like single drips of water that carve a hole in a stone.

A year with Raven has passed faster than you thought possible, but slowly, too. You've savoured it, and there have been ups and downs.

You're meeting regularly with Jackson now, and realising every time how much you always got on and how much you've missed him. _How much the drugs pushed you apart. _You've even been on a few double-dates, and found - to your surprise - that they went well.

You both meet regularly with Indra, Nyko and Lincoln, and you're planning a short break in a couple of months. _You__'d forgotten how it felt to socialise._

Clarke didn't send back her last Christmas card. You don't know if that means anything - she could very easily have just binned it - but you can't help but hope she noticed how thick it was, and opened it out of pure curiosity, and read your letter. _And you__'re so much more optimistic without the drugs, and with Raven. You can feel it._

You wake slowly, luxuriously, stretching against soft sheets and softer skin. Raven's warm body is pressed to yours, her breathing even. You smile, brush some of her soft hair back from her face. She's beautiful, and you're not sure you'll ever get used to seeing her lying beside you. She squirms, stretches, and smiles before she cracks her eyes open.

"Good morning," she mumbles. "A whole year."

You grin, and kiss her cheek gently. "A whole year," you agree. "Any regrets?"

She shakes her head, and clings more tightly to you. "You?"

"No," you reply softly. You hesitate. You'd promised yourself that you wouldn't trap her, you wouldn't tell her first, but… "I love you," you murmur into her hair.

She tenses, and then hugs you so hard that the air rushes audibly from your lungs. You cough slightly and she lets go, pushes herself upright, pulls you with her.

She waits until you look up, guarded, nervous, to meet her eyes.

"Say that again?" She requests softly.

"I love you," you breathe.

And she looks at you with that expression again, like the sun and the moon are your own creation, and you suddenly recognise it for what it is.

"I love you," she replies, breathless. "I've loved you for so long."

And you smile through tear-filled eyes, hold your arms out to her, and thank any deity that may be listening for the second chance you've been given.


End file.
